Hunting with Buckshot

it seems to me that the guys that donot us buckshot are the guys that donot like it and think nobody should be able to us it D
 
Ardent said:
No you got it right Jay, it is poor, and inconsistent in its effectiveness. Good for vermin, and I'm sure social work at three yards, and little else. Slugs are better in literally every application except perhaps shooting small pests.
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A 300WM is better then a 270WIN in literally every application but that doesnt stop the 270WIN from being an effective cartridge. If patterned, and used within its limitations, buckshot is acceptable to use on deer. So we have some stories of people shooting such and such an animal at five feet and it performing badly. Im sure if we surfed just a little bit we could find stories of people using just about any shell ever invented and it performing badly. If the shot is poor, then it doesnt matter what the load going down range is.
 
I've used buckshot on a bear, once, and with a good hit it was abysmal compared to slugs or rifles. That was a 000 load just behind the shoulder, it worked, but far less convincingly. From that experience I'd rather use a .223 with a good bullet on deer or black bear than buckshot. Yes it kills, but it isn't a particularly strong killer or very effective shock wise, likely on account of its very limited penetration and low velocity. Those who've cut up an animal hit by buckshot know what I mean, pellets are as little as 6" deep.
 
I've hunted in a few multi-projectile only zones and don't find it worth it. Even with load testing there's a lot of variability in patterning and with relatively few balls to make up the pattern you can end up in a sh**t situation relatively easily. I tended to favor the longest choked barrel I could manage in thick bush (kind of negates the concept of buck and a short gun for bush hunting) just to try to tighten up the group to where I could rely on it. Ended up not taking a lot of shots.

Last major experience was a friend using buck shot that we'd tested in their gun and found to work. Shot was about 20-25 yards front quartering towards. One pellet hit the spine, one hit the front leg low down, one hit far side of chest and followed the ribs under the skin and one hit the rear close side of the ribs at the back and went into the gut. I would have said the gun would perform better further based on the patterning we did, but this particular shot was not super impressive.
 
tylerjwitty said:
Buckshot should be renamed to gooseshot . Only thing its.good.for
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This deer my brother in law shot last year would disagree. Or, maybe he'd have been happy to have it banned. Thing is, he didn't have much chance to complain about it, because it was the most impressive bang-flop I have seen yet.
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bearkilr said:
Buckshot is one step up from throwing rocks, unless you're really strong and can manage to throw a big rock, then choose that instead.
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My cousin, with his first deer he's shot. Only one pellet in the lungs (he rushed his shot and screwed it up) and it still turned the lungs to mush and folded it within 100 yards. That's a lot better than a rock.

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And yes, I realize neither of those bucks are monsters, but they are the first deer for both those guys, so they were pretty chuffed. Both deer shot within less than 10 yards. The first one; my brother in law took his time and it paid off - deer dropped right there. Second pic, my cousin rushed. He had a duck gun in a deer blind and couldn't get the barrel out the window quietly and as a result, didn't aim properly. Result? Deer was still dead in a very short distance.

This pic is a doe I shot a couple years ago. Longest shot I have used buckshot for - approx 15-20 yards. Deer was DRT.

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So I was watching Duck commander on Pay tv and one of the Fellas with a beard, lol no seriously, Jase was in Nebraska hunting mallard an a Coyote jumped up behind them, he went on the hunt an from I think 60 yards he shot this Yote with "Black cloud" haha

anyway, random fact

WL
 
TheCoachZed said:
How can a bang-flop not be good?
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The issue being that the vast majority of shooters are taking shots at 20-40 yards, being used to guns being capable of that. Close enough it works, however even at that there isn't the shot # to guarantee that there won't be gaps in the pattern. I will still consider using it in shotgun only zones, I just know that I need to get well within bow range to use it.
 
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