Arrgghh I hate choosing Duck shells!!

Turkeyslayer 1300

Turkeyslayer 1300

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Please help me choose what loads to use for ducks and geese I would like as many pellets in the pattern as possible and these pellets should be adequate for one of the two birds.Tell me your set ups and what ammo you use cause Im going insane
 
Are you planning to use steel shot or other non toxic? 2 3/4" or 3"? Either way for steel I would select the fastest load of #2 for ducks and the fastest load of BB or BBB for geese. You should be able to find 1550 to 1650 fps loads in both 3" and 2 3/4".
 
Yeah I so far plan to use steel but was just considering that i could use #6's in winchester's new supreme elite stuff for ducks and maybe 4'sor 2's for geese. This would make connecting easier as my wing shooting is awful. Or am I crazy and should just use steel 3's for ducks and bb's for geese.
 
I shoot 95% of my ducks (average -- about 200 a year) with 6 steel. For geese I use 2's. BUT I shoot them close -- inside of 30 yards. I also keep about 4 boxes of 4 and 6 Hevishot on hand for any cripples that might fall outside of that range.
 
You need both coverage (lots of pellets in a good pattern) and penetration (enough velocity for the pellets to penetrate into the vitals).

For ducks, I would look at 2's and 3's. And geese 2's and BB's.

2.75" or 3". 1450 fps plus.

But you need to pattern the different shells with your gun and chokes to find the combination.

The above loads that pattern out of your gun well, will kill out to 40 yards, no problem.....if you hit the bird right.
 
great dual purpose load is a 3" or 3.5" 1550 fps load of steel BB

I like T for geese, and #2 for ducks. make sure its 1550 fps, cuz slow steel sucks balls
 
3" Fasteel 1 3/8 ounce #2s for ducks. #3s if you're getting a lot of teal or scaup.
Same weight and brand in #1s or BBs for geese.

The #1s make a good double purpose load.
 
I love using # 5s and # 3s Tungsten Matrix for both ducks and geese. But the price is a bit wacky this year... last year was bad enough. I as well am now looking for the magis steel load. I do have a 3.5" gun coming but I would rather stick to lighter shells if possible.



*EDIT*
Woo hoo I just checked my stash... I stil have about 50 shells in TM #5 and 130 in TM #3s!!! I should be ok for a few weeks!
 
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Turkeyslayer 1300 said:
Are #3's adequate for mallards?
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I don't use them too often, but I have. They do ok, especially on decoying birds. Most of my mallards are jump-shot, and the #2s are better at slightly longer ranges.
I find that bigger shot's just a little more versatile. Small stuff does ok inside 25ish yards -- but at those ranges even #2s don't leave any real holes in your pattern. Out past 30, you lose too much penetration with the smaller shot.

Anyways, my go-to mallard load in the days of lead were number 5s, and #3s are the steel equivalent, so they should do fine.
 
I use the 6's because of size and pattern density. The marsh I grew up hunting on was one of the very first places in Canada to go steel only. I shot steel for 5 years before anyone else had to.

Large steel tends to bind up on feathers and lacks penetration. Also the lack of pattern density means a bone break or CNS hit is unlikely and that's the only hope for a fold-up on waterfowl with steel. 6's have a smaller cross-section so it less likely to deflect off of bones and its increased density means its more likely to hit spine, wing joints or brain. Even on body hits, its small size allows it to cut through feathers rather than bind them and drag them through.

This season shoot for a week with your regular loads. Then switch to a box of 6 steel for a shoot. See if you notice a difference. Remember, its only good inside 30 yards -- but thats where most ducks are shot anyway.
 
Hmmm....ive tried just about everything. After many, many, many dollars and hours spent trying to find the best load for me, I ended up going to 2 3/4" #4 Fasteel (1550 FPS) for ducks (both mallard and bufflehead sized birds are the norm here) and BBB's are in a side saddle for those ocasional geese. I don't no why, but everything from BB's to 6's pattern good in my gun, but the #4 steel seems to fold way more birds than the #2's I used to shoot did.
 
sjemac said:
Large steel tends to bind up on feathers and lacks penetration. Also the lack of pattern density means a bone break or CNS hit is unlikely and that's the only hope for a fold-up on waterfowl with steel. 6's have a smaller cross-section so it less likely to deflect off of bones and its increased density means its more likely to hit spine, wing joints or brain. Even on body hits, its small size allows it to cut through feathers rather than bind them and drag them through.
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Well, that's a new one on me. I've compared penetration between #4s and #2s on plucked birds and the #2s went deeper -- I've never heard of pellets "binding" in feathers.

Don't doubt that you're getting clean kills on close-in decoyers with #6s, though. Frontal shots and plenty of pellets mean you're putting them into the head and neck, and it doesn't take much energy to penetrate to the brain that way. I use #6s sometimes as cripple killers for that reason.
 
BBB said:
Well, that's a new one on me. I've compared penetration between #4s and #2s on plucked birds and the #2s went deeper -- I've never heard of pellets "binding" in feathers.
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Binding as in dragging feathers into wound channels and decreasing penetration due to increased friction. My beef with the larger shot it that many apparent misses are not misses. The large light pellets often deflect off of bone rather than smash through and quite often a few pellet strikes WILL take out the heart and lungs but allow the bird to go on for several seconds before it dies (much like an arrowed deer). I have watched literally hundreds of birds fly 100 to several hundred yards before suddenly flying straight into the marsh and doing the "funky chicken". Just yesterday the young fella I was hunting with loosed three shots on a flock of spoonies with 3's and they never flinched. As is habit, I watched the flock while he muttered and reloaded, sure enough 200 yards out first one and then another shoveler nose dived into the water and started flopping. By the time we got the boat to them both were stone cold dead. I see it happen many times a year with the guys who listen to the "experts" at Wholesale sports and show up with boxes of 3.5 inch 2's for puddle ducks.

Lead due to its malleability transfers more energy to the bones it hits which is why lead killed so much better. The small steel, due to its smaller surface area is also less likely to deflect off of bone and has better chance of transferring its energy to the bone.
 
What you're suggesting is in direct violation of the rules of physics. Given two pellets at equal velocity, the heavier one will penetrate more, despite it's larger size.

Period.

Secondly, are you saying that smaller shot doesn't drag feathers into wound channels?

Cause I've got dozens of grouse carcasses that would prove you wrong.
 
BBB said:
What you're suggesting is in direct violation of the rules of physics. Given two pellets at equal velocity, the heavier one will penetrate more, despite it's larger size.

Period.

Secondly, are you saying that smaller shot doesn't drag feathers into wound channels?

Cause I've got dozens of grouse carcasses that would prove you wrong.
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I think what he is saying is that the smaller shot will gather less feathers and therefore have less friction. Also with smaller surface area, there is less chance of gathering feathers. Grouse and duck feathers have very different properties.

Physics aside, if he is folding more birds with the smaller shot then it is working for him.

I am considering moving to the the smaller size and going back to a tighter choke. Maybe I can keep my TM shells a little longer by using # 6 steel as my first shot and TM as a follow up on my second or third.

And as far as the equak velocity is concerned... lead and today's steel do not travel the same velocity. What was the old lead loads? 1100-1200fps. Steel you can get in 1300-1700 with 1500 about the average, that's 30%-60% faster. When steel first hit the market (at $30 a box of 20 rounds) it was produced intraditional lead velocities and you had to go larger.
 
I use #3 Kent steel on Ducks and BBB on Geese.... 3 inch shells are fine for puddle ducks and 3.5 for the big water and field hunting Geese!
We beat the hell out of the Geese on Friday and Saturday!
 
BBB said:
What you're suggesting is in direct violation of the rules of physics. Given two pellets at equal velocity, the heavier one will penetrate more, despite it's larger size.

Period.

Secondly, are you saying that smaller shot doesn't drag feathers into wound channels?

Cause I've got dozens of grouse carcasses that would prove you wrong.
Click to expand...

As a high school physics teacher I agree with you in principle. However the "rules of physics" only apply in lab conditions and really not even then (the "rules" really only apply in that magical world with no friction). With shot striking a bird there are so many variables in place that many of the
"rules" appear to be falsified or altered. They are not obviously but are simply being affected by variables that gun testers don't pay attention to.

Too many people ignore cross section when shooting steel shot. Smaller shot is less likely to strike a feather shaft and drag the same amount of feathers into a wound as is large shot. Smaller cross-section also has better initial penetration due to less frictional resistance.

After doing some labs with regards to inertia (firing different masses of the same size and diameter into styrofoam and measuring penetration --of course denser penetrated further). I tried out my bone breaking theory.
Using aluminum rods with rounded ends -- one with a diameter twice that of the other (so density was the same). I fired both with compressed air at the same velocity at the same diameter hard plastic pipe. Both shattered the pipe when fired straight on, however the smaller diameter rod was more forgiving at angles, breaking the pipe at more obtuse angles than the larger diameter one.

Tried penetration tests too. Fired straight into styrofoam, the larger diameter rod (therefore the heavier one) penetrated better but when I laid down layers of plastic flagging tape in front of it, the larger ones dragged more of the tape into the styrofoam and penetration was severely reduced, while the penetration of the smaller rods was virtually unaffected.

Again, if your happy with what you use, so be it. But I still contend that inside 30 yards that 6 steel with high velocities 1400 fps+ is a better killer on ducks than 4's and up. Beyond that larger sizes may kill more but I'm willing to bet that a lot more "misses" are actually heart-lungers with a dead bird piling up a few hundred yards away.
 
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sjemac said:
Again, if your happy with what you use, so be it. But I still contend that inside 30 yards that 6 steel with high velocities 1400 fps+ is a better killer on ducks than 4's and up. Beyond that larger sizes may kill more but I'm willing to bet that a lot more "misses" are actually heart-lungers with a dead bird piling up a few hundred yards away.
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Fair enough. But I've seen plenty of those two hundred yard dead-in-the-air birds with lead shot as well. And like I said, the sixes are obviously working for you -- though I still contend that's more a function of more CNS head/neck hits, rather than any greater penetration ability of the smaller pellets.

Bottom line to turkey slayer, and something I bet we both agree one -- whatever you pick, fire a couple rounds at a sheet of paper to confirm your patterns -- high velocity steel won't help if you're leaving big gaps.
 
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