Shot size dimensions
- Thread starter RePete
- Start date
Just found this picture online and it seems legit. I know nothing about the site but it seems to matchup with what RePete posted in the original post but the visual aid makes it easier to understand...at least for me
That's the chart I have taped to my ammo cans. I like 12 gauge 3" T shot with a full choke for long range Canada geese.
BigUglyMan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- New Scotland
Super Swan Gauge
I was reading this over and got all nostalgic about the quaint British buckshot size designations, which were actually used here when ammo was still being made in Canada. The last time I saw the Brit system being sold was probably around 1985. A British shotgunner once told me that possession of buckshot sizes has been made illegal in the UK but I have no idea if that's true or not.
A few thoughts on shot sizes: when I was a kid, #4 shot was considered daringly small but as I got into the lore and science of upland shooting, authors like Burton Spiller started telling me that what mattered were shots on target, not the size of the ones that hit. A master Maine grouse hunter, he favoured shot as small as #9 when he could get it, rarely in his day (the early 1900s), but he wrote that he always used #8 if he possibly could.
Nowadays the ammo makers list shot size #6 as the most all-round choice, but Spiller adjusted me down to 7.5 for almost everything, and if I think I'm going to encounter woodcock I load #8, which OK is conventional wisdom, but it still works well on grouse, and rabbits if I want to carry one. Anyway, low brass 7.5 has always done me good service, patterns well in my favourite SxS and works on the critters I want to eat.
This is all about upland lead shot of course, steel changes everything but I would only use that on waterfowl, one federal law I can really get behind.
Nowadays the ammo makers list shot size #6 as the most all-round choice, but Spiller adjusted me down to 7.5 for almost everything, and if I think I'm going to encounter woodcock I load #8, which OK is conventional wisdom, but it still works well on grouse, and rabbits if I want to carry one. Anyway, low brass 7.5 has always done me good service, patterns well in my favourite SxS and works on the critters I want to eat.
This is all about upland lead shot of course, steel changes everything but I would only use that on waterfowl, one federal law I can really get behind.
