When I could shoot coyotes with lead shot I killed quite a few with Federal Premium 3" 1-7/8 oz copper coated BB loads an some 2-3/4" 1-1/2 oz lead T shot loads.
Most of the coyotes I shot with lead BB loads needed to be shot more than once between 45 and 50 yards away.
When I had to switch to lead free shot I went with Rem HD BB shot that was 12g/cc shot and it out performed the lead BB shot by quite a bit. In GC's "New Shotgun Pattern Test Results" post, I just coppied this. I posted this on 11/10/07. The copper coated lead BB's from the Federal Premium shells were found between pages 89 and 127 of the first catalog, they were all torn up. Most of the Rem HD BB's were found between the first and second catalog, 355 pages. Three of the HD BB's were found at pages 27, 44 and 62 of the second catalogs.
Based off of my results of shooting at least 100 coyotes with copper coated lead BB shot, I came up with 3.70" of gel penetration needed in the KPY Shotshell Ballistic program to break down or kill coyotes.
From KPY Shotshell Ballistics
1300 fps lead BB shot gets 3.70" of gel penetration at 46.1 yards
1300 fps Rem HD BB shot gets 3.70" of gel penetration at 62.4 yards
1300 fps TSS #4 shot gets 3.70" of gel penetration at 78.9 yards
The Rem HD BB shot out performs lead BB plated shot by a long ways and I would say it is at max a 55 yard coyote load for consistantly killing and breaking down coyotes.
The TSS #4 shot 1-1/2 oz load gets 32.8 yards more penetration and has 47 more pellets than the 1-1/2 oz load of lead BB shot has. No lead shot load can compete with TSS #4 shot when it comes to killing and breaking down coyotes.
