Hornady Coyote 12 Gauge Loads Best Choke Results

Bob you are correct, Remington is making a BB load. But it is only available in 3 1/2 inch. I have a couple of boxes of the new 11.6 g/cc in 2’s and 4’s but haven’t played with them yet. I’m still a little recoil shy do to shoulder surgery. Remington website has a list of all the new HD shells.
 
Go over to You-tube and check out how the Amish hunt coyotes.
They get a bunch of guys and only use shotguns and nothing over #4 birdshot.
Not #4 buck but # 4 birdshot like we used to use on ducks. They shoot a lot of em making drives through slews, swamps and brush, woods, & open grass fields. Drivers are
50-80yds apart. We got a lot of Amish around here also. Most everybody will let them hunt on their land. Decent fellers.
 
They use small shot for safety reasons, not because it is a good choice for killing coyotes. They also do A LOT of shooting per coyote. Some of that is excitement and stretching the range, some is poor shooting and a good bit of that is the ineffectiveness of the shot loads. One of these Amish drives in central Missouri resulted in the killing of a mountain lion. The mountain lion got closed in by about 60 shooters. I bet that sounded like the taking of Fallujah Iraq when all those excited Amish fellers opened up on that big cat.

At this point I think I have probably conservatively killed somewhere around 20-22 coyotes with 12 gauge turkey loads. Around 10-12 of those were 3" #4 or #5 plated lead turkey shells. These loads carried 1.75 - 2 ounces of copper plated and buffered lead shot. The rest have all been 3" Hevi 13 2 ounces of #6 tungsten. Out to around 30-ish yards the turkey stuff does ok, especially so the denser than lead tungsten H13. Past that results begin to get very sketchy and very inconsistent.
 
They state at the beginning of some of the videos that #4 is the biggest they use because of drivers and posters safety. Nobody would expect shooters to use buckshot. Some very impressive videos with lots of coyotes on the ground. Sometimes they have people walking through the thick stuff just making noise, to scare yotes and to let shooters know where they are!
When they hunt around here, they line up on the gravel roads and walk to the opposite gravel roads, they have the sides and ends covered also. I would like to go along sometime if I could keep up, LOL
 
Keep the plastic out of your barrel for better patterns, few hunters EVER clean their shotgun barrels.

Back when we were skinning a lot of coyotes, we felt like FOUR Body hits from #4 buck was what it took to kill a coyote...red neck rule of thumb of course.
 
in addition to what Ackleyman has said about keeping barrel clean..You should only pattern with a clean barrel. I actually bore snake and swab between every shot when I'm testing to ensure fair comparisons between loads find each loads maximum potential.
In addition to this..ALL of my Turkey and Coyote specific shotguns have been polished/deep cleaned with a brush & patch coated in polishing compound or (JB Bore Paste - non embedding)to get a mirror like finish as soon as I buy them. THIS is probably the biggest improvement one can make if you don't have a Chrome Bore to minimize plastic fouling and make easier to clean between shots. This also makes a BIG difference on the pattern board for tighter and more even patterns.
Sure you're not going to do this afield, but the first shot will do what you expect and the next ones will degrade a little until you get a chance to swab/bore snake again.
Some guns shoot better dirty and some pattern best squeaky clean. Only way to find this out is to shoot and count hits each shot.If patterns get lower numbers with each shot, then clean and see if it restores. If numbers improve then of course don't clean it during the season.
 
Driven2tri24 said:
I've done a LOT of patterning with both of these in my Winchester & Mossberg Non-Back-bored guns and as mentioned already they all have patterned best with either the standard I/C or MOD chokes. At 50 yds with the 4 Buck load and MOD choke I consistently get 6 pellets in 8" @ 50yds and all 24 inside 30". The I/C gets 5 in the 8" and all 24 pellets inside 36". The BB loads also had a very even/complete coverage of the 36" paper with the MOD choke at 50yds. The I/C choke had a more spaced out pattern but all were on 48" Plywood.
I run the BB load with I/C as a backup to my Rifle on my Lap on field edges/treelines for short range reaction shots out to 50y and I run the 4 Buck with MOD choke inside woods where I have time to aim at them and possibility of shooting through timber out to 75yds..
FWIW in open timber I use a 18.5" Pump Carbine .308/Low Mag Thermal with 110 Vmaxes @3350fps.. Fast follow up shots like SG, but real world range of 150yds. Kind of the best of both worlds in the Timber.. Gun weighs 7.5# . I have been trying to buy one in .243/25-06 but prices have soared on them...so I may turn to a Rem 7400(semi auto)..
I've done the AR thing and I just don't like the Pistol Grip when sitting and trying to shoot offhand.
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Thanks for the shotgun tips using 4B and BB. I have owned two Rem 7400's, a well used one and a new one for elk hunting. The used one couldn't keep a zero and I wasted a lot of ammo trying to get it to shoot. I loved the look and feel of the gun and thought the zero drift had something to do with being old so I bought a new one. Zeroed it at 200 yds at 70 F. Took it elk hunting in N Idaho with ~0 F temps (busted my guts climbing mountains in snow). Had an easy broadside (facing right) ~20O yd shot, laid prone with a big rock as a rest, squeezed off with the crosshairs just behind shoulder, and missed! What the heck? I took it home in disgust and shot it at various temps. I figure the zero had shifted ~2 ft to the right at 200 yds. I sold the d__n things and never looked at them again, and I do not sell guns except ones I hate. Got me a Savage 110 (floating barrel) in 7mm Rem that has stayed zeroed for 30 yrs whether it's 90 F or 0 F.
 
7400's were known for crappy groups and shifting Zeros due to it's non free floating barrel. (Unlike the 760/7600's they were designed from which is free floating. The pumps shoot awesome off hand, but are tough to shoot off a bench because of spring effect of free floating telescopic magazine/forend tube acting as a spring. Regardless most of the pumps were capable of shooting 1.25-1.5" groups at 100yds off bags and probably some of the tightest off hand groups I've ever shot to this day aside from AR-15 calibers. The POI's stayed pretty consistent to zero on the pumps whereas the 7400's were all over the place with temperature even worse than barrel banded lever guns out of the box. The forend touching the barrel(especially wood ones) were the culprit, and guys would zero gun in on barrel not being absolute cold for 1st shot. shoot more and get frustrated until gun was warm enough it settled or they ran out of ammo..then when went afield, 1st shot cold was a mile off.
The trick for 7400's is shoot one round way you'll hunt(sticks/offhand, whatever)let cool back to temp you will hunt in. Make correction and shoot 1 round cold again. Repeat process. ONLY consider/count cold bore shots.
 
You should consider a 7600 then, same feel without any of the problems. Just zero it offhand or how you'll use and point and shoot. It points and shoots like the 20gauge receiver it came from. I've shot close to 100 coyotes in timber over the years with them (and/or shotguns) and can honestly say there is not a better off hand shooting/tracking gun made with traditional type stock and fast repeater. The Semi-auto version was a failure from day one by design. IF I were elk hunting in timber, I would not hestitate to take a 22" 7600 30-06/308/ 270/25-06 or 35 Whelen.
 
I kill more than a few Coyotes every year with a Shotgun, there is no real reason to use 3 1/2" heavy shot or any thing larger than 2 3/4" #4 buck shot, the more is better with a shotgun is B. S. I hear the same B.S. from Turkey hunters then the real Turkey hunters show up with a .410 and #8 shot. Murl B.
 
My go-to coyote loads are 1 oz NP BB in the 16ga and 1 1/4 oz of the same shot in the 12ga these are in combo guns so I have the option of the rifle barrel for stuff over 40 yards, no sense beating up the old guns with heavy loads.
 
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