Interesting article about shotgun ballistics

[terrym]

http://www.fieldandstream.com/articl...ut-shogun-ammo

[kickingfrog]

Perfect for a Sunday morning while having a coffee.

[terrym]

I thought it was a pretty good read. It will be bird season again before you know it.

[greatwhite]

And duck + goose season. It was a good article. So the 3.5 inch is more effective. I don't find the recoil a big deal just the cost. When I see 3.5 inch on sale I buy them.

[terrym]

I shot one turkey with 3.5" shells and gave away the rest of the box. Not a waterfowler so I guess they are more useful with steel?

[welsh]

The whole reason 3.5 in shells came about was steel shot. The revival of the 10 ga is the same story.

I'm not sure the data show that the 3.5 in is more effective. The effectiveness of a shotgun load is not measured by the number of pellet hits in a 30 inch circle on a range but by whether the pattern is dense enough to kill a bird. A bird killed by three pellets is just as dead as a bird killed by five.

The conclusion re the .410 is a bit bogus, too. They established that a .410 with full choke at 30 yards had less pattern density and penetration than a 20 with modified choke, but then praised the .410 based on its pattern efficiency -- that is, the percentage of the overall pellet load inside the 30 inch circle. Well, a bird doesn't care about pattern efficiency; it cares whether the pattern is dense enough to kill it. The test confirmed what we always knew: the small load of a .410 rapidly becomes ineffective with distance.

[jaycee]

And duck + goose season. It was a good article. So the 3.5 inch is more effective. I don't find the recoil a big deal just the cost. When I see 3.5 inch on sale I buy them.

?????? Not by much, only by .8 percent very miniscule and is the extra recoil over a days shooting worth it ?, not to me and many others.

Test Loads:
- 12-gauge, 3-inch, 11⁄4-ounce loads of Black Cloud steel BB shot at 1450 fps (Modified choke)
- 12-gauge, 31⁄2-inch, 11⁄2-ounce loads of Black Cloud steel BB shot at 1500 fps (Modified choke)
Results: Both loads patterned almost identically on a 30-inch circle at 40 yards: The 31⁄2-inch load put 72.6 percent of its shot in the circle, with 77 pellet hits. The 3-inch placed 71.8 percent of its shot in the circle, with 63 hits. There was no significant difference between the lengths of the shot strings, which averaged 42 inches for the 3-inch and 49 inches for the 31⁄2-inch midway between muzzle and target. Both loads exhibited equal penetration in ballistic gelatin at 30 yards—5 inches—despite the 31⁄2-inch shell’s 50 fps head start in muzzle velocity.

The Takeaway: I expected the 31⁄2 to string out longer and pattern worse than the 3-inch load, but it patterned just as well. The higher pellet count of the 31⁄2-inch resulted in significantly more hits in the circle, but both loads put enough hits on target to kill geese.
However, the improvement in performance comes at a cost of a whopping 50 percent increase in recoil. Even with a gun seated in a massive rest, I could feel the difference, and the muzzle blast was noticeably louder in the test tunnel, too. I shot some of those same 31⁄2-inch shells while trying to shoot a triple on a five-stand range. I could hit the first target always, but recovering from the shot to make the next two was almost impossible.
Is the 31⁄2-inch more effective than the 3-inch? Yes—if you can withstand the recoil. “More” is only better if you can put it on target.

[sherlockbonez]

I love the 3.5 hd for turkeys (and at the rate i'm going a box will last me most of my lifetime).

1.25oz 3 inchers are my preference for waterfowl. Not sure if its the slower speed or high pellet count but I found those loads knocks them out of the sky better then faster loads.

[greatwhite]

Recoil from the 12 with 3.5 doesn't really bother me at all. That's pretty much what I used last year was all 3.5. as long as the prices is the same I will buy them.

?????? Not by much, only by .8 percent very miniscule and is the extra recoil over a days shooting worth it ?, not to me and many others.

Test Loads:
- 12-gauge, 3-inch, 11⁄4-ounce loads of Black Cloud steel BB shot at 1450 fps (Modified choke)
- 12-gauge, 31⁄2-inch, 11⁄2-ounce loads of Black Cloud steel BB shot at 1500 fps (Modified choke)
Results: Both loads patterned almost identically on a 30-inch circle at 40 yards: The 31⁄2-inch load put 72.6 percent of its shot in the circle, with 77 pellet hits. The 3-inch placed 71.8 percent of its shot in the circle, with 63 hits. There was no significant difference between the lengths of the shot strings, which averaged 42 inches for the 3-inch and 49 inches for the 31⁄2-inch midway between muzzle and target. Both loads exhibited equal penetration in ballistic gelatin at 30 yards—5 inches—despite the 31⁄2-inch shell’s 50 fps head start in muzzle velocity.

The Takeaway: I expected the 31⁄2 to string out longer and pattern worse than the 3-inch load, but it patterned just as well. The higher pellet count of the 31⁄2-inch resulted in significantly more hits in the circle, but both loads put enough hits on target to kill geese.
However, the improvement in performance comes at a cost of a whopping 50 percent increase in recoil. Even with a gun seated in a massive rest, I could feel the difference, and the muzzle blast was noticeably louder in the test tunnel, too. I shot some of those same 31⁄2-inch shells while trying to shoot a triple on a five-stand range. I could hit the first target always, but recovering from the shot to make the next two was almost impossible.
Is the 31⁄2-inch more effective than the 3-inch? Yes—if you can withstand the recoil. “More” is only better if you can put it on target.

[topher]

Just man up and use a 4 gauge.