Hunting with Buckshot

conor_90

conor_90

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It almost seems like an asinine question, but can you hunt (especially, well bucks) effectively with buckshot?

The scenario I'm envisioning is thick cover and tiny blacktails on the NW and Gulf islands. This seems well within the realm of possibility considering the average ranges and thickness of cover encountered in these areas.

As a bonus a lot of these places are crawling with bears, not that I am in the camp that feels firearms are a necessity for bear defense (I work in the bush, and do not carry) but sometimes hunting for deer in these areas greatly increases your chance of agonistic encounters with bears.

Any advice for shot placement when using buckshot? Any stories to share of big game taken with it?

I have heard the buckshot should not be fired through any choke smaller in diameter than modified, any truth to this statement?

Are modern buckshot loads tailored for home defense and the name is an anachronism? or are there hunting rounds on the market designed to pattern well at intermediate distances?
 
From what I've found, trial and error is the norm for buckshot. Try different loads out of different chokes and see what works best. This will also show you what range you have for an effective and responsible kill. Cylinder to full choke is fine for buckshot...lots of info on the web about it.
 
we shoot big Ontario white tails with buck shot .are doggers all load up with buck shot as thy are walking thru the thickest nasty brush thy can find to chase deer out to the blockers .if thy get a shot it will be from 20 feet to mayby 20 yards .buck shot will not travel as far as a slug so if thy get a shot the blockers will not have to worry about a slug coming out of the bush at them .buck shot works very well at short range just aim for the front half of the deer .and as far as choke goes any choke is fine even a full choke can shoot buck shot most find that a mod choke wil give the best pattern .D
 
dutchhunter said:
we shoot big Ontario white tails with buck shot .are doggers all load up with buck shot as thy are walking thru the thickest nasty brush thy can find to chase deer out to the blockers .if thy get a shot it will be from 20 feet to mayby 20 yards .buck shot will not travel as far as a slug so if thy get a shot the blockers will not have to worry about a slug coming out of the bush at them .buck shot works very well at short range just aim for the front half of the deer .and as far as choke goes any choke is fine even a full choke can shoot buck shot most find that a mod choke wil give the best pattern .D
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Even Buckshot should not be used to fire in the direction of blocker as it can and will find a path to a hunting buddy.
 
You'll want to do some careful test shooting before hunting with buckshot so you'll know what pattern you're getting at what range and with what choke. Watching people on the range, it's often not as dense as most people think.
 
I use buckshot for zombie/fun shooting. I can get all the pellets onto a 8x11 peice of paper at 25 yards. During bear problem season, I load my shotgun with slugs and the last one is a 000 buck for a Hail Mary shot.

Having that said, I have no use for buck as a hunting round. It doesn't make good sense to me to divide the energy of your well placed shot into 8 or 9, or however many pellets your buckshot has, while hoping one of them hits where you aim. At 50 yards, you don't know if your pellets are hitting ears, tails, feet, or as$holes. 12 gauge slugs however, are quite effective and carry a lot of energy for good hunting kill shots at distances up to 60 or 70 yards.
 
I have gotten a smallish buck with 00. It is not my primary choice by any means but if you keep your distances short and know your pattern it will do the job just fine.
I think anything past 40 yards is really, really pushing it and you should have a slug in the chamber but for thick bush buckshot does have it's purposes.
 
...back in the day i reloaded #4 buck for geese ...50 yards was no problem ...and yes, buck is quite effective in the right reload ...now not legal for hunting big game here in manee-toe-buh ...i now reload 00 and #4 for giggles, predators, defense (last week a neighbour handed me a bag of 00 he found in a used car he had bought...my gain!)

...at 30' #00 is a real show stopper ...2" dimensional dried spruce with improved choke ...carried well into the stump behind it (several inches) ...ballistic products carries premium reloading components and also puts out a paperback reloading guide

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Curly1 said:
Even Buckshot should not be used to fire in the direction of blocker as it can and will find a path to a hunting buddy.
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off course I agree 100% with that .but why take a chance with slugs well in thick cover .the way most guys talk the guys dogging should not be shooting at all as thy are walking toward the blockers .we have the blockers far enough away from the bush being pushed most time thy are were the deer end up not were thy are coming from .be safe no matter what .no game animal is worth any risk of someone being hit with a stray .D
 
If you must use buckshot, anything with the Federal Flite Control wad is by far the best choice. Due to the wad design, these loads usually pattern best with the most open choke you can get. In my tests, I found that I got better results using a skeet choke than with improved cylinder.
 
I have shot four deer with buckshot at ranges from about five yards to probably 15. Every one was a Bang-Flop except the first - I shot, it fell over, but it came as a total surprise and I hadn't aimed correctly (basically it jumped in front of me while I was climbing a very steep hill). I had to shoot it again to kill it, but it wasn't going anywhere.

Other people I've observed have been successful: My cousin shot a deer with it ten yards last year with me and only managed to get one pellet in the lungs. The deer was still dead inside 100 yards. We found him piled up under a spruce, puking his shredded lungs out. In that case, I'd shattered his shoulder (the deer, not my cousin) as it ran off after the first shot; if I hadn't, that deer might have been hard to find. That was my cousin's fault, I think, for shooting a long, bulky duck gun that rattled a lot, therefore requiring him to hurry.

A week later I brought my brother in law to the same stand but I lent him my deer shotgun - Winchester 1300 with short barrel. This was much handier, he easily sneaked the barrel out the window and took down a 5-point at five yards with buckshot. Bang Flop.

The key is, get at least three pellets in the heart/lung area if possible. Up close, it's super deadly. I have never seen a deer that was hit cleanly with it get away, except for the one my cousin shot, and as I said, we found him pretty quickly.

Practice to see what load patterns best. The #1 load Winchester sells is often overlooked, but it's arguably the best combination of pellet size and count. I prefer loads that use Federals FliteControl wad or whatever it's called (Hornady Superperformance uses it under another name). It patterns very very well, although at the cost of lower pellet count.

I think 000 has too few pellets and too much recoil, personally. If, like me, almost all your deer are shot at under 10 yards, you could probably even get away with #4 buck, but I usually go with 00. I prefer 3" loads, but will shoot 2 3/4 if that's all that's available. This year, I'm using Hornady Superperformance 8-pellet 23/4 loads, if I don't use my crossbow ...

I wouldn't use it on bears unless it was all I had.
 
I did not take 00Buck very seriously until I watched some You tube videos of it. Groups at 40 yards were effective and gelatin penetration was much more than I expected.

I usually get deer in the 25 to 50 yard range, so 00Buck would be perfectly acceptable to me.
 
Thanks for the responses guys. Funds are low atm but I did do some patterning.

As for buck vs slugs I feel like slugs would be overkill in the situation I mentioned, and do not have a rifled barrel. Also with the dense cover I would worry about ricochet or not being able to see the terminal direction of my slug if it penetrates the deer and zips off into deep cover.


It doesn't make good sense to me to divide the energy of your well placed shot into 8 or 9, or however many pellets your buckshot has, while hoping one of them hits where you aim.
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I think responsible use of buckshot would entail shooting within ranges where you know your gun/shells/choke hold a dense pattern.
 
I went last year using flight control 00 buck:


This year I'm getting organized to film a close range deer hunt with #4 buck.

Cheers,

Brobee
 
Miramicher I bet your shoulder was thankful when you switched guns.

Thanks for the vid Brobee, very well done. I like the post shot monologue.
 
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There are a few areas in the islands and southern Van Isle that are shotgun only. These coastal blacktails are pretty small, and on some islands extremely numerous. The bush is very thick and lush, most shots are from bayonet distance to 50 yards.

IIRC in BC the minimum buckshot size is 00 buck...so .32 or.33, 9 or 12 32cal roundballs at 40 yards against a 120lb live weight blacktail is effective. On a shotgun i have since sold i tried a variety of chokes with some old buckshot. For my gun the modified gave the tightest group, at 40 yards it was about 16" with one flyer, but most definitely a dead deer. The buckshot is still in the shotcup of the wad exiting the barrel and shooting full choke is not a problem, i would doubt it would be a problem on a older non screw choke firearm either.

Some guys with specially purposed rifled shotguns and slugs, are achieving excellent groups with slugs out past 100 yards. Personally i have never tried that. I would not think shooting high powered slugs out of a older shotgun with full choke, would be a good idea.

These areas are high concentration of Black Bears because there is high concentration of food. Until recently both coyotes and grizzly were absent from Vancouver Island. There are now, by reports 5 male grizzly in the north island. If you don't threaten a food source, surprise them, or come between a sow and cubs most of the time you are fine. 99 out of 100 times the Bear is far more afraid of you than you are of it. Unfortunately Bears don't come numbered. If i was working outdoors near salmon streams or berry patches i would be carrying some type of defender shotgun. Peace of mind.
 
Buckshot may be fine at 30 yards on your little blacktails... but when I guided for bear, I didn't dictate what my hunters used, as long as they proved profficiency... that is until I took stock of the situations that had gone badly and realized that the majority of them involved buckshot... I subsequently banned buckshot as an option for my sports... I do not necessarily believe that these situations were caused by an inferior load, but rather the laxidasical attitude of the hunter using it... the mindset is not one of a "single precision shot," but rather a "jeez I hope I hit it" mentality... IMO, that mentality has no place in hunting.
 
Hoytcanon, I think this is the case for a lot of hunters regardless of what they are using; be it a semi auto, buckshot, or a magnum caliber. I take ethical and safe shooting very seriously, and I'm sure most CGN members do as well. Just like all hunting situations I think effective range, hunting style and patterning/shooting your firearm beforehand are more important than shot size. Like I said in the op, it almost seems funny to ask if a buck can be killed with buckshot, but the style of hunting out west is a far cry from coursing deer with hounds and shooting them on the run with buckshot which seems to be a common technique where the load is popular.

I can't envision myself using buckshot for bear hunting, but like you say attitude plays a big part. Some guys stalk bears to 5 yards and bowshoot them while they're half buried in a salal bush, others take bears half buried in a bait can with magnum's. I honestly don't know if one is better than the other as long as safety and ethics are observed.
 
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