10ga buck shot range?

huntnut

huntnut

New member
I shot the BIG TEN for waterfowl and turkey I want to use it on coyotes, bobcat & fox, some places I hunt are tight places that I cant use my 22-250 with big scope. I want to use the 10ga with either #4 buck or 00 buck. I was wondering what the killing range is. I was thinking arond 75 yards and that probably wound be the furthest shot in the woods most around 30-50yrds. And would #4 buck be better because of pellet count or is the 00buck for energy. I have talked to some guys that used to use bb's but I think thats a little small if they are to far out. Now if they made that dead coyote hevi shot for the 10ga I wound go with that.
 
After developing a 2 oz HeviShot #5 turkey load, for my
10 ga. using BPI wads, I would suggest getting the
largest HeviShot pellets they make, and put those pellets
into a BPI wad. With a properly choked 10 ga. it will
be dead coyote out to 75 yards, and probably beyond.
I dropped a tom, at 55 yards, when a hen leading him
hung up on me. I was just about out of hunting time,
for my season, and I had tested the loads out to 50 yards,
and had plenty of pellets to do the job. When I pulled
the trigger on him, he flopped twice, and was stone dead.
He was just on the crest of a small hill, so I thought he
was running on the other side of the hill. Instead, he
was just that dead. This stuff has a ton of energy!
So BB HeviShot, should be powerful coyote medicine
out to 75 yards.

I have made #4 buck loads for my 10 ga, and after a
bit of searching, I found a choke that gave me decent
patterns out to about 60 yards. I only shot one coyote
with these loads, and it was about 50 yards running.
He left about a 2'x6' red streak in the snow. I had
complete pass through with about 6 pellets. Needless
to say, this is not a fur friendly load, but there was no
issue of trailing a wounded coyote. It would probably
kill beyond 75 yards, if you got a couple of pellets into
the vitals. The problem is if you got pellets on it. What
I found is choking for tight patterns seemed to scatter
the pellets at longer distances, and open chokes did
less than expected at shorter distance, and sucked
out past 40-50 yards. I think shot deformation is a
problem in lead buck, going through a choke.
I eventually settled on a "full steel/modified lead"
choke, which was pretty decent out to 60 yards with
#4 lead buck. HeviShot has no such problem. I will say
that a tight choke, in my Browning Gold, which is normally
a soft recoiler for a cannon, plain thumps me hard with these
BPI Hevishot loads. Pattern testing has to be done in
a couple of sessions, with shoulder recovery in between.
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif But what ever I shoot at with Hevishot dies fast,
even at extended ranges.

Squeeze
 
The only way for you to know the sure killing range of your gun is to take as many chokes and loads as you can gather to the range and pattern test the various combinations until you hit on the most consistent one. No. Four Buck is better than 00 Buck for coyote size game. I seriously doubt you'll get 75 yard performance. Likely closer to 60-65ish yards "IF" everything is kosher with your gun, choke, and load combo. Better to spend some time on the range shooting paper learning exactly what the "in's and out's" are of your gun than be disappointed in the field and risk wounding game.
 
I use a 10ga. #4 buck and I have dropped coyotes at distances I paced off over 70 yards. I use a modified choke as it seems to pattern better. I tried a full but the tight choke did something to the pattern and it did not work as well.
 
I killed a 5 point buck with Federal #1 buckshot the deer was 45 to 50 yds from me when i shot him. And a alot of the pellets went thru him . I was using my Rem SP 10ga and a custom buckshot choke. VM
 
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