OO buck.

[mcwoodduck]

I was reading the Craig Boddington article on OO buck shot that is in the March guns and ammo mag.
What a bad article!  There were no tests just some stupid story about how he had a problem with a Leopard once and how it worked well for him in South America.  I was wanting some meat to the article.  You know, when he grabbed three or four shotguns of various barrel lengths and chokes and set out to see what buck load would actually stop something.  Heck when Capstick wrote a similar article he at least used some math and showed what he thought of #1, 00, and 000 out of a 12 ga.  Still not that great of an article.
I would like to have seen him take a slat box with dowels and water filled Zip loc bags and covered with carpet to simulate a critter and go over five or six loads of buck and see what went through the carpet, the water filled zip loc bags and them through 1X3/4 slats of pine to hit a paper target.  And them how many of the X# of pellets in the load made it through.
The gallon Zip lock bags can be doubled or even trippled up to creat thicker critters.
Go to the www.safarishootingschool.com for the day and see if the buck would slow or stop the simulated charging black death.  At the same time do an article on the school.
Craig if your reading this, kinda wish the leopard had gotten you, that way I would not be dumber for having read your silly article!

[mcwoodduck]

OH on to the question. 
Has any one played with and tested Buck loads?

[flintlock]

I've killed a few dozen deer with buckshot, being raised in eastern NC where they still run deer hounds it's kind of a right of passage...

It's just like a rifle, you buy different shells, pattern them and use what works best...

My Browning B-80 prefers Improved Cylinder and Winchester 00 Buck in 3 inch mag, it puts
5-6 pellets into a 8 1/2 x 11 piece of notebook paper turned on it's side at 40 yards...My
2 3/4 1100 prefers Winchester #1 buck...My double barrel prefers Winchester 00s in the full choke barrel and #1s in the modified barrel...

Buckshot is deadly if patterened in each gun and shots are kept within the effective range of the weapon...I prefer to keep shots within 40 yards or so...

[mcwoodduck]

Flintlock,
Where in Eastern NC.
My stepmother has a farm just outside Oriental.

[mcwoodduck]

Oh yea,
I have used Buck shot to kill a deer or two.  I prefer my 308 bolt action with open sights but buck works.

[Siskiyou]

I did a little unscientific testing with my duty M870 20-inch cylinder barrel.  I tried two different loads, Federal 2 ¾ 00 Magnums with 12-pellet count, and 2 ¾ #4 buckshot with a 27 pellet count. 

The target was a FBI, black on white human outline.  The target was screened by green brush (live).  The target was set two to three feet back into the brush.  The range was approximately 30-yards.  Using the old rule of thumb on shotgun patterns the pattern was expected to open up to about 30-inches at 30-yards.

The M870 was equipped with rifles sights and they were used.

One shot results:

#4 buck no pellets made it to the target. 

#00 buck one pellet hole found in the upper right leg.

I had fired a lot of the above rounds on the range with good results, but I walked away from this test with a tactical lesson.

With standard Federal and Remington rifle slugs I was able to hit the target.  I picked holes thin locations in the brush screen.  For some reason my shotgun did not care for Winchester slugs.

This is as close to the real world I worked in as possible with target simulation.  I think the true test is to use native vegetation.  Dry kiln wood hard wood dowels are not commonly found in our Western woods.

I changed how I carried loads in the tube of my shotgun.  My first round up was a Magnum 00, followed by rifle slugs.

I have only taken one deer with a rifle slug.  As a kid I duck hunted a small river with a lot of thickets.  I carried a couple rifle slugs with me just in case.  Now days Grouse season and early weekend of deer season come together.  If I am carrying the double barrel I have a few magnum 00 Buck loads with me.  If I am carrying the pump I have rifle slugs with me.  A buck would have to present an ideal, open shot before I would pop a buckshot.

I prefer a rifle for deer hunting.

[mcwoodduck]

Sorry,
In the article Boddington talks about how a uck load did not get through the leopard to hit vital stuff.  i was thinking of using the wood slats to simulate bone and not brush.
I was thinking carpet would be a good sub for animal skin.  So build a slat box and staple zip lock bags to it with H2O in then to simulat muscle and then the slats for ribs with a paper target inside to show what would make it through.
I did some tests with my 1897 winchester 20" riot model with 00 and 000.  I would set up grocery bags on a saw horse to simulate a deer and aim at it and shoot.  i had consistant one pellet that would go to point of aim and one that would be 4" away in all directions and I have no Idea where the other 7 pellets went at 40 yards.

[35Rem]

Shooting 20" cyl bore barrels at 30 and 40 yards won't get you much. I think both of your expectations are too high. The short barrels were meant for close distances.
http://www.gunshowroom.com/Shotgun%20choke%20patterns.htm
The link above is pretty basic.
60% patterns at 30 yds, 40% at 40 yds in a 30" circle.
for a 12 pellet shell that means you should have 7, maybe 8 pellets hitting in that 30" circle at 30 yards, 4, hopefully 5, pellets at 40 yards. More choke will help, but it's best to pattern your gun with what you shoot in it. Wad technology has gotten better over the years so better patterns can be shot, but it costs more, too.

[wink_man]

Boddington is a jerk, one of the many aptly desribed by Jack O'Connor eons ago as doing more hunting over a keyboard than if the field. He's strictly in it for the money . He's a rifleman, with no interest in shotguns whatsoever, but needs to keep subscribers pacified, one of the reasons I don't read the gunrags anymore.

If you asked him if he pattened that shotgun with the buckshot before the leopard incident, I'm sure he'd be stuttering, LOL.


With that being said, shotguns and buckshot account for a lot of deer, some at pretty phenominal distances(for buckshot). I live is a state where you can't hunt centerfire rifles for deer, only slugs or buckshot. Some guys here prefer buckshot, over slugs. I know a few who shoot 10 gauges, and are very comfortable shooting at 80 yards, and they drop deer at that range, bang flops. It goes without saying, that a LOT of work went into patterning their guns with various buckshot loads, and that is the key. If you don't pattern the gun, you have no clue as to what it can(or can't) do, kinda like buying a bore sighted rifle and just taking it out hunting, hoping for the best.

Buckshot penetrates light skinned game just fine, even at longer distances, you simply have to come up with the right buckshot/choke combination to deliver enough of the buckshot to the boiler room at the intended distance.

We personally use a 9 inch paper plate for our buckshot testing, because thats about the size of a deers boiler room. I don't care where the pellets go outside of the paper plate, I just want to know what I can deliver to the boiler room. Always pattern the gun, even a brand name within the same size buckshot can make a heck of a difference. Many will tell you a tight choke ruins a buckshot pattern, but it all depends on the individual gun/choke.

Recently, my son was patterning his Winchester 1300. He found that using his HS Strut extra full turkey choke at .665 constriction, he can consistently put 13 out of 16 pellets of #1 buck from a standard Remington high brass load into the 9 inch paper plate at 50 yards. While he hasn't tested it further out than that, I'm sure when he does it will work out to be a 75 yard deer gun. So much for the theory that tight chokes always ruin a buckshot pattern, LOL.

While I'm not a big fan of buckshot and much prefer slugs, I've played enough with it and seen enough deer killed with it to know if you pattern your gun and come up with the right combination, it's pretty deadly, and well beyond the '30 yard max' you hear most laymen describe who have no experience patterning it and prefer slugs so draw a conclusion that buckshot is only effective to that distance.

[mcwoodduck]

What exit?
I grew up in NJ.  Exit 117.  But we hunted in either NY or NC.
Yes I think there is a big difference between the short riot/ trench guns and something longer with a choke.
And

[wink_man]

Exit 88, at da Jersey shore, LOL.

[SHOOTALL]

i can tell ya for a fact 00 and 000 will pass thru. a deer if it is good fresh quality shells . leave them in the tool box in the truck for a few or 12 years and all bets are off . Trust me on this . the dash board all season is bad also .

[Mack in N.C.]

buckshot is great if the hunter hunts within his and his gun limits(as with all guns) it just most people dont know how to hunt with buckshot......i grew up in nc where deer dogs are(were) allowed....you had to hunt with bucksot to kill anything.......caswell co. and eastern nc.....you do not aim for the boiler room on deer with most buck shot(i guess if you get most of your pellets in a paper plate at 50 yds you can.) ..i read this along time ago in THE OUTDOOR LIFE DEER HUNTERS ENCYLOPEDIA.......you aim at the base of the neck......that way some pellets hit the base of the neck...some hit the neck and some hit the boiler room........if you aim at the boiler room some pellets get the gut.......after we stated doing this our one shot kills went up........also i have seen deer killed at 80 yds but even in most instances a 10 ga should be limithed to 60 yds and 12 to 40-50 and a 20ga to 30 yds..........i dont hunt behind dogs any more but i do put buck shot behind my slug in my slug gun..usually the slug drops them where they stand but if they run,  a quick second shot aimed at the neck gets them.....Ithaca smoothbore with 26 inch barrel.... .....mack