shotgun loads

J23

J23

New member
in close rang with coyote hunting which load should i use, slugs or #4? and by #4 i mean the one with 4 metal pellets.
 
a slug? that would be a less effective choice and so would a shell with 4 pellets. the thread GC gave you will start to bore you after 20 pages but it will give you a good idea of where you should start trying to find the best load for your gun. personally i'd stay away from the HD stuff.
 
Originally Posted By: nightcallera slug? that would be a less effective choice and so would a shell with 4 pellets. the thread GC gave you will start to bore you after 20 pages but it will give you a good idea of where you should start trying to find the best load for your gun. personally i'd stay away from the HD stuff.

Are you talking about all "denser than lead" tungsten loads, or, the Remington Wingmaster HD in particular? I'm curious about your statement.
 
haha sorry guys, my friend told me that #4 meant the amount of pellets. i feel like an idiot now. but thanks for the advice anyways
 
J23 you don't need to apologize we are here to help you in any way we can man. Everybody starts somewhere and I'm glad your starting right here at Predator Masters. You can send me a pm if you want or just ask right here and we will answer any and all questions you have to the best of our ability. If it helps I'm recording a radio podcast that's coming out this Sunday all about shotgunning. The Predator Hunting Talkcast
here is a link http://recordings.talkshoe.com/rss34247.xml
 
My statement regarding HD loads is from experience and testing of the Remington HD load. The pellets patterned extremely well out of my gun but after i had to shoot a couple of coyotes 3 times me and my shoulder decided to do some testing.

i used 3 different loads in my test; all were 3.5" @ 40yds. I shot a 1" thick laminated layered particle board.

00 lead - went straight through and i was unable to recover the pellet. i have used these on coyotes with results that varied and this test confirmed my hunting experience. at closer range a direct hit would sometimes require a follow up shot. from my test i confirmed that it was from overpenetration. the 00 was not doing the damage that i wanted as it past through the animal.

#4 buck - pentrated almost half way into the board and mushroomed. i have now gone to using these exclusively and they have performed extremely well on animals. so, i ordered a case of them. they patterned well out of my gun and they expend all of their energy in the target.

Remington HD BB - this shell was one that i was very excited to use when i saw the velocity and the pattern that it produced out of my gun. however, i had to shoot coyotes too many times when i was sure that i had hit them hard. i shot one in the face (i watched the hair on his face puff when i shot) on a frontal shot and had to shoot him 2 more times and then my buddy shot him. i was not impressed. in my test the HD pellets were patterning well but only making a divot on the laminate surface and falling to the ground. i found a couple of them in front of the target and neither had mushroomed one looked perfectly round.
 
I must say, your HD results surprise me. They are not at all what I have observed....on many occasions. I do agree that the Rem HD will not mushroom; and it should not (well ok, if you fired it out of NASA's rail gun). This stuff is substantially harder than steel. I also do not think mushrooming shot is going to help that much if at all.

Did you check the velocity of the Rem. HD load? I realize, that shooting a shotgun through a chronograph will likely not give a perfectly accurate velocity, but it will get you in the ballpark.
John
 
in high school i used to shoot a lot of prarie dogs with a 22mag. one time i bought a case of FJMs because they were cheap. that was when i learned the value of an expanding/mushrooming bullet. if i didnt hit the prarie dog in the head they would jump in the air and run down their hole. in my opinion that is exactly what the HD loads do on coyotes. there is no expansion and therefore all they do is stick holes as opposed to transfer energy the way a frangible bullet will. mushrooming creates a significantly larger surface area which causes the bullet to "drag" through the animal which creates more energy transfer. this energy transfer makes any ammunition more leathal, relatively speaking.
 
Your results are exact opposites of mine. Nor is it like derbyacresbob's penetration test as listed in our big Shotgun Pattern Thread in the Firearms Forum. The Wingmaster HD out penetrated about everything else tested. The Wingmaster HD has absolutely stunned everything dead stiff that I've shot with it. That is coyotes, fox, coons, possums, feral cat, crows, and probably a couple critters I've forgotten. I strongly prefer it above anything else I've tested and used in the field.

With that said, I do know of two guys that have contacted me about Hevi-Shot's Dead Coyote load that is not performing as expected. The Dead Coyote has been under penetrating and the pellets have actually been breaking apart. One described it as looking like graphite dust under the hide and against the muscle tissue or bone. Bob crushed some Dead Coyote with pliers and basically it broke into dust like pieces. Wingmaster HD did not crush and kept its form. I suspect perhaps Envron-Metal/Hevi-Shot has made some sort of change in the mix or temper of the pellets to cause this. They are notorious for doing this with their turkey loads and it drives turkey hunters that use Hevi-Shot loads nuts.
 
nightcaller,
Shotgun pellets kill differently than rifles, there is little energy transfer. Shotgun pellets must penetrate to disrupt vital tissue and the killing ability comes from the pattern placing a large number of pellets on target to shred vital tissue. Hard pellets can penetrate, soft pellets deform and do not make it inside to disrupt that inner tissue and organs.

What sort of patterns were you getting with HD?
 
The problem with that argument is velocity. A single .22 Mag bullet at an impact velocity of say 1500-1800 fps will slow down considerably as the bullet mushrooms or fragments. This will impart more energy to the target (though still a small amount). Number 4 buckshot at an impact velocity of 900-1100fps is going to slow down considerably upon passing through a yote size animal. Therefore they have already imparted most of the energy they have (even in mass). If given the choice of a few more inch-pounds of energy transfer or a second laceration to the outside world...... The other problem with shooting soft lead is poor patterning at the higher velocities.
John
 
Any of you gentlemen ever try shooting Winchester 3 1/2" #4 Buck unplated lead shot? Just curious because I have two boxes of it. I've been shooting the 3 1/2" Dead Coyote shotshells.
 
GC / pcammo,
Glad you have success with the HD. Do you really think that a pellet that maintains its shape will do more damage than one that mushrooms? A pellet that mushrooms increases its diameter considerably and does significantly more damage. The reason that i dont use a shot larger than 4 buck is because i dont want it to go through a coyote sized animal. i'm not looking for a large wound channel like a bow hunter i'm looking for energy transfer that kills quickly. This is the same rational for not using a match rifle bullet to hunt with. they do not do the damage that an expanding bullet will do.

Just because 3.5" HD works well on feral cats, fox and possum doesn't tell me anything about performance.

to say "the problem with that argument is velocity" doesn't hold water in this case. How fast do you think a pellet needs to be pushed to kill a coyote at 40 yds?
 
Beagler,
that's exactly what i use. it took me a couple of years to accept that my HD was not working and i have now seen the light and have converted. i had similar arguments that the other guys on this thread have about using the HD crap. you're a much faster learner than the rest of us.
 
Originally Posted By: nightcallerGC / pcammo,
Glad you have success with the HD. Do you really think that a pellet that maintains its shape will do more damage than one that mushrooms? A pellet that mushrooms increases its diameter considerably and does significantly more damage. The reason that i dont use a shot larger than 4 buck is because i dont want it to go through a coyote sized animal. i'm not looking for a large wound channel like a bow hunter i'm looking for energy transfer that kills quickly. This is the same rational for not using a match rifle bullet to hunt with. they do not do the damage that an expanding bullet will do.

Just because 3.5" HD works well on feral cats, fox and possum doesn't tell me anything about performance.

to say "the problem with that argument is velocity" doesn't hold water in this case. How fast do you think a pellet needs to be pushed to kill a coyote at 40 yds?



Exactly how much energy do you think a few pellets of 4 Buck are going to impart on a yote? You do realize kinetic energy is defined as 1/2mv^2. If you are looking for a kinetic kill, then velocity is by far the most relevant term in the equation......

Lets assume your yote is at 40 yds and your load of 4 Buck starts out at 1250fps. 4 Buck is .24" in diameter and each pellet weighs about 20.8 grains. A good approximation for the BC of each pellet can be calculated as BC=20.8/(10640(.24^2))=.034 Therefore, each pellet will have a remaining velocity of about 926 ft/sec and the energy will be about 39.5 ft-lbs per pellet if it comes to a complete stop. Even if you hit the boiler room with 10 pellets, you still have less than 400 ft-lbs of energy. The scenario you describe is just not how shotguns kill.
John
 
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