Best Shotgun Shell for Yotes

I dunno Bob. When I say my experience, it isn't on gel, it is on meat. Not to be gruesome, however I have worked several shootings when a shotgun was used. The last was when a jealous husband tracked down his wife's lover. Hubby shot Romeo from about 20' distance with a cheap one ounce 20 gauge field load of #6 shot. Entrance was on the right nipple front of chest. Entrance was about a 2" hole. Exit was grapefruit size and blew most of what was in the way going through onto the wall behind Romeo. That's roughly 10" of penetration with some bone involved.

There are other experiences that lead me to believe that a lead #4 from a 3" magnum loading is going to penetrate meat 3.70" further out than 8.5 yards. To the subject of coyote's I have shot just enough of them with that load to have a good idea of where that runs out of effectiveness. I realize the computer program provides a yardstick to compare load to load. I follow your data when you post it and most of it makes sense to me. This one however doesn't.
 
I follow all of both you and Bob's shotgun stuff GC.

Being fairly new to shotgunning coyote, and wired for data it seems, I have kept careful track of my own results.

What I have found Bob's 3.7"/KYP yardstick to equate to, in the field, for me, is a load that can fairly reliably break a coyote down that is going straight away at that 3.7" penetration distance. In other words, not a marginally effective load at that range, but a darned effective coyote load.

And that's how I rank them, in my own mind. How they break down that running straight away shot. Every other angle is gravy, by comparison.

Only point being I guess, that my limited experience, Bob has a pretty good yardstick to bench race loads against.

- DAA
 
Oh, and BrianID, shimming my M2 improved my shooting both with and without red dot. Most especially on snap shots with no time to think just point and shoot. I need all the help I can get though.

- DAA
 
Dave, angles matter. Those going away coyotes are the tough ones. Those are the coyotes you better plan for when setting up a shotgun and choosing a load for coyotes. Like I said most of the figures from that program make sense to me. But not always. However, it's a great way to compare various loads.
 
I am sure that if you shot a tight pattern of lead #4 shot at 15 yards and under some of the pellets would penetrate deeper than what KPY shows.

I am pretty sure KPY is just showing what a single pellet will do penetration wise. I know coyotes can be killed with lead #2, #4, #5 and #6 shot if you can make head and neck shots at 30 yards and under.

The 3.70" of gel penetration that I like to have for coyotes is the minimum that I want for shooting coyotes that are running away. The coyotes I hunt don't get much bigger than 35 lbs and most of them are between 20 and 30 lbs. So if you are hunting bigger coyotes 4.0" or 4.10" of penetration would no doubt be better.

Check out below what I got from KPY for penetration at 50 yards. Every load was 1300 fps except for the 1700 fps steel T shot load. "Every chance I get I like to show how terrible steel shot is."

Look how much the lighter less dense Steel T shot has slowed down at 50 yards compared to the other shot types.

1700 fps Steel T shot at 50 yards gets 2.89" of gel penetration. at 50 yards 805 fps
1300 fps lead #4 shot at 50 yards gets 1.98" of gel penetration.
1300 fps lead #2 shot at 50 yards gets 2.61" of gel penetration.
1300 fps lead BB shot at 50 yards gets 3.59" of gel penetration.
1300 fps 12g/cc BB shot at 50 yards gets 4.13" of gel penetration. HW13 shot or Remington HD shot
1300 fps 15g/cc #2 shot at 50 yards gets 4.41" of gel penetration. at 50 yards 807 fps Federal Heavyweight shot
1300 fps lead T shot at 50 yards gets 4.26" of gel penetration. at 50 yards 801 fps
1300 fps TSS #4 shot at 50 yards gets 4.68" of gel penetration. at 50 yards 818 fps Tungsten Super Shot

You can see why lead BB shot peters out at about 45 yards. Look at how much more the Lead T shot penetrates compared to the lead BB shot.

The 15g/cc #2 shot is the Federal Heavyweight #2 shot. In my 1-1/2 oz reloads there is 90 FHW #2 shot pellets per shell.

One thing the KPY Shotshell Ballistic program doesn't show is how much better the hard Tungsten alloy shot breaks bones compared to the lead shot.
 
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Originally Posted By: DAAOh, and BrianID, shimming my M2 improved my shooting both with and without red dot. Most especially on snap shots with no time to think just point and shoot. I need all the help I can get though.

- DAA

I really should shim it. It has probably costed me a few birds and coyotes.
 
Man I wish I had done a bit more research on shot size before I went out last week. Went on a coyote drive and was using 1300fps T steel. The head on dogs inside 35 yards died easy but anything past that or a sub par first shot required one if not 2 follow ups. Needless to say I'm switching back to lead for this week's trip.
Bob have you ever looked at the larger diameter buckshot? I'm curious to see how it stacks up.
 
Number 4 buckshot would be the biggest buckshot I would use if I ever would use buckshot. I just don't like the patterns you get with 41 pellets and less per shell.

In my opinion lead BBB and Lead T shot are about the perfect sizes of lead shot for shooting coyotes.

Lead number 4 buckshot is a much better coyote load than steel T shot is.
 
A good patterning load of lead No. Four Buck has been a coyote hunters go to shell for a long time. It is the largest size shot that comes close to offering enough pellets to be truly useful. Number Four Buck is the generic do it all lead coyote shotshell, like the .30-06 of big game cartridges. Lead No. Four Buck is inexpensive and available.

However with HTL shot materials lead No. Four Buck can be beaten. Heavier than lead shot allows smaller pellets to do the same, or better, work than larger lead shot and can give a lot more pellets in the pattern. HTL penetrates and breaks bones better than lead. Generally HTL patterns tighter also. Problem is cost and availability. Steel is NOT an HTL material and is inferior to even lead shot.
 
BrianID said:
There are many good loads that will work for coyotes. I've been happy with the Hevi Shot Dead Coyote in T with 3 1/2" and the Hornady Heavy Magnum Coyote BB in 3". Both will kill a coyote stone dead if it is 40 yards or less and I've killed coyotes over 50 yards with both. I've taken 11 shots at coyotes in the last two weeks with my shotgun. I still have about 15 of the 3 1/2" Hevi-Shot loads but I just purchased an additional 10 boxes of the Hornady coyote loads due to cost. $12-$15 per 10 verses $50-$70 per 10 really starts to add up. I wouldn't doubt the Hevi Shot has an effective range of an extra 5-10 yards over the Hornady load but to me it isn't worth 5X the price and a shotgun is really for close up work anyway. A place that I may hunt is shotgun only and I will probably use the Hevi Shot Dead Coyote and Turkey Choke if I hunt there.

I also have a SBE III and have the turkey .667 choke. I've actually switched to the M choke that came with my gun. The pattern with the turkey choke was too tight and I was missing some coyotes at less than 30 yards. I would often get them with the follow up shot when I took more time to aim. For my style of hunting the shotgun is used to get those hard charging coyotes and the ones that catch my by surprise. Most these shots are less than 40 yards and the bigger pattern has seemed to help me miss less. I still missed one that backed doored me last week at 10 yards but the follow up Texas heart shot at 25 yards killed him stone cold dead.

It is very important to pattern whatever load you choose, even if it costs you $7 per shot. One thing to warn you about SBE is that it often shoots high. After patterning my gun I've found I need to aim about 6" low at 30 yards.
Click to expand...
Yep. My SBE 3 shoots high as well
 
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