Shotgun choke and range question?

[jon cornett]

Ive been using a mossberg 500 pump with a improved cylinder choke tube for years, used to use federal heavy field load 6 shot, decent to good range with those. Cant find it anymore, using regular field or game load with short brass. Was wondering what range i would have if i went to high power 6 shot which is available at our local walmart using same choke (improved cylinder). Walmart here in Bedford Indiana is starting to stock shot in steel including 6 shot but i dont know about steel shot but they do have alot of high power 6 shot in lead still on shelves. any info apprciated. thanks Jon Cornett

[Duke]

First off we need to know what gauge shotgun your using. I am assuming 12 gauge. An ounce and a quarter of number 6 shot contains around 280 pellets. So you could try using an ounce and an eighth of 7.5 which would contain around 390 pellets. Your pattern would be more dense with the improved cylinder and it would give you decent range with a high quality, high velocity shot shell. You could expect a killing pattern at 40 yards.

[Duke]

As far as steel shot is concerned it is more expensive and lighter and harder. It loses velocity quicker and does not hold as tight a pattern.

[jon cornett]

20 guage

[Duke]

In the case of a 20 gauge a heavy load or an ounce of 6 shot contains 225 pellets. 7/8 ounce of 7.5 contains around 300 pellets. At 40 yards around 40 percent of the shot should be in a 30 inch circle. That's around 90 pellets in a 30 inch circle. Personally I think that's plenty to kill a rabbit, of course you could go up to a modified choke and increase the amount of pellets at long range but at close range your killing pattern will be much smaller and very dense possibly ruining the meat.

I would stay away from steel shot. You could always go to modified and a regular game load in 6 shot.

[Casey Harner]

In the case of a 20 gauge a heavy load or an ounce of 6 shot contains 225 pellets. 7/8 ounce of 7.5 contains around 300 pellets. At 40 yards around 40 percent of the shot should be in a 30 inch circle. That's around 90 pellets in a 30 inch circle. Personally I think that's plenty to kill a rabbit, of course you could go up to a modified choke and increase the amount of pellets at long range but at close range your killing pattern will be much smaller and very dense possibly ruining the meat.

I would stay away from steel shot. You could always go to modified and a regular game load in 6 shot.

I agree with Steel shot, when I hunted Pheasants in SD and used Steel Shot, we had more lost birds after the shot with Steel Shot than we did any other brass.

[wwdorroh]

All guns are not made for steel shot. Be careful

[Freeman Beagles]

I use low brass 6s or 71/2 in my 20 ga. with modified choke. It does a excellent job on a bunny.

[barnold1]

My choice is a 20 gauge with IC choke, high brass 5-shot. 100 rounds bulk pack for $35 at Dicks Sporting Goods; sometimes you can catch them selling ammo at buy one, get one 1/2 price.

[dogrich]

As far as steel shot is concerned it is more expensive and lighter and harder. It loses velocity quicker and does not hold as tight a pattern.

Sort of...

Steel shot is lighter than lead if you are talking about the same size pellet. The rule of thumb when choosing steel is to go two sizes larger than what you would have used in lead. If you like #6 lead, to get similar performance, you'd need to use #4 steel. Choosing larger shot creates another problem... less pellet count. You can't stuff as many steel #4s in a shell as you can #6s. This can be somewhat overcome due to the fact that steel typically patterens much tighter than lead. It is harder and lighter, but if you go to a larger pellet size (two sizes larger) you will have similar weight. Because it is harder (and usually rounder), it doesn't deform as it travels down your barrel. A harder, rounder pellet will fly truer and have tighter patterns. If you look at a modern shotguns' choke tubes, often they show that you use a more open choke to achieve the same desired pattern w/ lead. Improved cylinder gives you a modified pattern w/ steel shot. This is because it patterns tighter due to it being harder, rounder, and being less prone to pellet deformation.

Having said all that, I hate steel shot. I don't even like it for waterfowl. If I can legaly use lead, I do so. If I can't use lead, I'll go w/ Bismuth, Tungsten, Tungsten Matrix, etc..

As to choke, I like more open chokes. About the tightest I use for upland game is IC. I use cylinder and skeet often. To me, Modified tends to chew up game at less than 25-30 yards. I like to hunt real THICK places, and it's a rare occasion that I can get a 30 yard shot. Skeet is fine out to 20-25 yards. My usual set-up w/ a long shotgun (I like to use a T/C encore pistol in .410 for rabbit) is a 16 guage Browning O/U w/ Cylinder and Skeet tubes. I like using low brass 7/8oz to 1oz of #6 lead. I've regularly taken pheasant at 30 yards w/ the Skeet tube of this set-up. The whole "high-brass" thing is a load of crap. It all comes down to shot charge and velocity. It doesn't matter how high the brass is...

[Duke]

As a rule of thumb the smaller the guage of shotgun you use the tighter the barrel restriction/choke you will need. A good example is the 410 which is hard to find in other chokes other than full, why? Because it is simply not that effective in more open chokes, or less restriction. The smaller the guage shotgun the smaller the load..... or fewer pellets to spread in a effective pattern. An IC in 410 would not come close to having an effective pattern at 40 yards.

The same goes for shot size. Using the smallest effective shot size in the most open choke that is effective for that shotgun gives the greatest chance of a kill, as it has a bigger pattern from start to the point that it becomes ineffective. For example a 12 guage using cylinder bore and 7.5 shot will usually still have an effective pattern to forty yards. It should still have close to 100 pellets in a 30" pattern at 40 yards. On the other hand using say 4 shot which would only have around 150 pellets in the shell itself would have only 30 some pellets in a 30" pattern at 40 yards. To use 4 shot it would make sense to tighten the restriction/choke to be more effective. This causes a smaller pattern size at closer ranges.

I have to agree with the above post many hunters use much heavier shot than is needed and much tighter restrictions than needed for hunting rabbits. You can improve your pattern density, size and effectiveness by going down in shot size and opening your choke more.

Another note on steel shot is the fact that since it is much harder than lead it does not deliver as much energy or killing force...... it penetrates more at the same velocity as lead, but delivers less energy as it does not flatten transmitting that energy to the target.