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I am looking to assemble a potent pheasant load using 1 1/16 oz plated shot for this coming season at 1200-1250 fps. Looking at the loads from my various reloading resources, I see that Blue Dot, Longshot, HS6, HS7, and Solo 1250 are the powders frequently given in the recipes. It appears that Blue Dot requires a lot more powder than the rest; not that this is a big issue since I won't be shooting nearly as much as with my target loads. My 16 ga is a Merkel 1620 so low pressure loads are too necessary other than to keep the recoil down some. I will be using BP Multi-Hulls, either the BP SG16 or Z16 wads, and Win 209s.

What powder does the group recommend? And is there any appreciable difference between copper and nickel plated shot in the field?

Thanks - Hc

*Last edited by brdhnt on Fri Feb 25, 2011 4:16 pm; edited 1 time in total*

High Country,

I would really recommend Long shot powder. It has performed very well for me on pheasants in both 12 and 16 gauge. The BP hulls are made by Cheddite so you can use any receipe for them or for the Winchester poly-formed which are also made by Cheddite.

You will get lots of opinions on the shot question. Copper is good, nickel is the best. That's based on over 40 years of chasing those longtailed birds all over the U.S. I use copper only when I have run out of nickel. In your load I would go with nickel plated 5's or 51/2's.

Good Hunting!

TB
________
Crack Rehab Dicussion

You would do well to up the shot drop to 1-1/8 and go to #5 shot. I'd also push the load at at least 1275 FPS for a truely potent load out tyo hell and gone ranges and under very trying conditions. I'm assuming here this is your objective. Under normal conditions when most shots don't exceed 35 yards, 1 ounce of hard # 6 shot at 1250 fps will be very effective. If you don't need the extra range and hitting power, why go to heavy loads.

All plated shot does better than extra hard magnum shot is penetrate feathers without pilling up in them. As far as getting better external ballistics, nothing is gained, if, and this is a big if, The wad you choose encloses most of the shot while it passes up the barrel. Wads with short cups like the Euro wads you mention do not do this. Even plated shot will suffer from bore scrub. This protection is the no.1 factor why modern ammo is so effectrive. The SP-16 Remington does this the best of all.

I'd use a Remington SP-16 wad in a Remington hull with Blue Dot. The SP-16 is the Only 16 ga. wad expressly designed for loads bigger than 1 ounce. It works best in a Remington hull. Blue Dot is the powder traditionally relied on to push this shot weight to high velocities in this hull/ wad combo. You wil need less of it in this combo to obtain your desired velocity. It just does not get any better if your gun will handle the pressure, which the Merkel will. The load will pattern superbly in most decently choked guns. you only need to look at the Alliant data available for this load too.

Recoil probably will not be a factor for pheasant hunting. The low number of shots per hour plus the adreniline rush when the bird goes up will see to that.

I think 16gaugeguy has given you some sound advice. My opinion would replace Blue Dot with 4756 but only because it is cleaner and has patterned better for me. But either is a good choice.
If I was Lawrence, I would be ashamed of the copper-plated shot I sold! The copper is only a cosmetic thin wash, and West Coast Magnum has performed better for me on patterns as well as game.
The nickel shot from BP is some mighty pretty stuff for sure but a pliers squeeze shows it A LOT softer that the West Coast Magnum. Winchester needs to bring back the "Lubaloy" shot as they made it 50 years ago.....

Yeah right! They can't even get all their primers to go bang these days!!

Slidehammer

Member Joined: 26 Apr 2005 Posts: 743

SH makes some good points, and Tom Roster has published some studies on plated shot. The vast majority of the plating these days is cosmetic only. The Italians, I think, turn out some good nickel-plated stuff. Far as I know, no one does decent copper plating any more, as Olin once did with the old (not the current) Winchester XX Mags, which were both properly plated and buffered (the latter probably having at least as much to do with tightening patterns as the former).

I like 5's for pheasants, but the problem is, if you're dropping 1 1/8 oz or less, you need a pretty tight choke. Otherwise, due to thin patterns, you lose the advantage of 5's over 6's--which is additional penetration (which you only need beyond 40 yards or so anyhow). And at ranges beyond 40 yards, there are other issues--such as your ability to center the bird, and your dog's ability to recover crips if you don't. Fly away (or otherwise lost) cripples increase dramatically at that range, mainly because of the fact that you don't need to be "off" very much for an aiming error to result in a bird that's not centered. If you're hunting in good pheasant country, the best solution is to set yourself up for the shot you're going to see (and be able to hit) most of the time, which is probably under 30 yards. When I get a flush out at 40 yards or so, I figure the pheasant's won that round. I'll look for another one, or see if I can get closer to that wily bird next time out.

Unless you can find really good plated shot, the advice to go with hard, non-plated shot is worth heeding.

Thanks for the good advice. I haven't found nickel plated shot in the Denver area unless someone on the board knows who sells it in my area. That being the case, can anyone tell me where to order good nickel plated shot from? The only mail order store that I can recall selling it is BPI.

Again, thanks!

Hc

Midway sells nickel plated shot for 25.99/ 11# bag. It is BPI's shot but I have seen other BPI products sold by Midway for less than BPI sells them for. Exclamation

If you can catch one of Midway's sales it will definately be less.

Dennis

Perhaps i should sometimes qualify my jargon. when i write "to hell and gone ranges", that means shots past 40 yards. Without the best of ammo and exceptional shooting ability, these longer yardages amount to "hail Mary" attempts. Once in a while the miricle of a solid hit takes place. Most times for the average shooter with average ammo, the bird flies on either unscathed or crippled but still flying.

Its very hard to pass up a tough shot after a tough hunt to get one. It also takes exceptional will power not to throw a pattern at the bird. If this happens to you, then at least carefully mark the bird down and follow up, even if the bird shows no evidence of a hit. more often than you might think, you've hit it with a couple of pellets in the boiler and the bird is doomed to a slow death if its not found and downed.

Its hard to pass a tough shot. Its easy to shrug and call it a miss. Please don't do this. Not shooting is the mark of an exceptional sportsman. Not following up on a shot is the mark of a slob hunter. for Joe average, its better to be in between those two marks.

I agree with you completely, 16gg. I have never been into to long range shotgunning, probably because I am lousy at it when shooting clays and would hate to cripple and lose a bird. In fact, I am getting a lab pup this year to insure that I can recover every bird that I hit as my pointers are a lot more interested in finding birds than retrieving them.

Hc

Member Joined: 26 Apr 2005 Posts: 743

HC, Labs are wonderful retrievers, and a whole lot of pheasant hunters in the Midwest swear by them as finders/flushers before the shot as well. Some old Iowa DNR statistics, based on hunter interviews, suggested that dogless pheasant hunters lost 2 or 3 birds out of every 10 they knocked down. That dropped to an average of 1 in 10, with a dog. Personally, I've never owned a dog that's done that poorly, and my very best ones (and I've kept track of birds bagged vs lost for a very long time) have had a loss rate of less than 1 bird out of 25 dropped, over careers that included hundreds of retrieves. You'll always lose the occasional bird, even with a dog, but with a good dog, those losses will be quite rare. My "senior" gsp lost one pheasant last season, and that was the first bird he failed to recover in 2 years.

Member Joined: 20 Oct 2005 Posts: 69 Location: SW MO

I have used a longshot reciepe from the hodgdon website that is really a good load. If you use a 1 1/8 shot bar with plated shot don't be surprised if you only have 1 1/16 when you weight the charge. Most busings are marked for chilled lead, and not plated mag. It will make a difference in weight.

Jason

I agree there Don. It's not only the plating, but also most shot bushings or bars are sized for 7-1/2 shot. Bigger pellets will throw light. Then add in the fudge factor insisted on by the corporation's legal team and there it is, light shot drops.

That is why I tend to weigh every charge of my heavier duty hunting loads. I won't shoot a full box of them in a year of two, but when I do, I'm shooting at a long one in a stiff wind on a cold day. So the extra time loading them is well spent.

I have an old adjustable shot dipper that I set for just under the full weight. I then add a few pellets out of a small dish to the scale to bring it to full load and into the shell it goes. It actually does not take all that long to do this--maybe 5 to 10 seconds.

I'm not too concerned about being a pellet over of under. It will not make that much of a difference. But throwing a shot drop 10 to 15% light will every time with the bigger pellets like #5 and #4 shot.