What shotgun cartridge?

BrownTrout

My gun has 28in barrels with both choked at .720/Improved Cylinder. What cartridges would ye recommend for general shooting on farmland with pigeons, crows, rabbits etc? I have been using Eley super games in 32g 6 with varied performance from box to box

philmire

BrownTrout wrote: »

My gun has 28in barrels with both choked at .720/Improved Cylinder. What cartridges would ye recommend for general shooting on farmland with pigeons, crows, rabbits etc? I have been using Eley super games in 32g 6 with varied performance from box to box

I use 34 gram rs's 5's and 7's find them very good and consistent find them alot better than there 32 gram sipe

BrownTrout

philmire wrote: »

I use 34 gram rs's 5's and 7's find them very good and consistent find them alot better than there 32 gram sipe

I was thinking of going up to a 34g load myself

dodderangler

Not mad on the eleys. Shot rate was just brutal with them so swapped to 34gr 5s and 6s ( 5 in bottom barrel and 6 in top) and find em better.
For rabbits and only rabbits I use the 5s

Cass

Improved Cylinder is a fairly wide choke. By wide i mean it has a wide pattern giving much more spread of the shot than a tighter choke such as modified, improved modified, full, etc. It is among the widest of the chokes with only cylinder and skeet giving a wider shot pattern.

Are the chokes interchangable? If so then either change them or look into buying some tighter chokes.

Of course this is only relevant depending on the distances you want to shoot. An improved cylinder choke will give a decent pattern out to 35 or so yards. By decent i mean you can reasonably expect to hit/kill what you shoot at out to this distance. The further out from this point the less likely you are to get the same results.

Increasing the shot size by going up (or down depending on how you look at it) will not make a huge difference. For example a number 28gr 7.5 may have 350 pieces of shot in it. A 34gr 5 only 200 or so. The shot size is bigger in the 5 but there is half of it meaning if the choke allows for only a 50% hit rate at 35 yards you get a better hit ratio with the 7 than the 5 (175 hits with the 7 compared to 100 with the 5).

So before looking at cartridges i'd look at the chokes first, try some pattern testing and then go for cartridge that suits.

BrownTrout

Cass wrote:

So before looking at cartridges i'd look at the chokes first, try some pattern testing and then go for cartridge that suits.

unfortunately the chokes are fixed

ESB Spaniel

Stay away from Eleys for rabbits anyway, range and knocking power are terrible. RC 5 34g's are the boys. Remington 6 or 5 34g's good as well. Would use cheap clay shells on crows Fob 28g would do the job, pigeons would use a bit heavier maybe in between.

Cass

BrownTrout wrote: »

unfortunately the chokes are fixed

That will limit your performance somewhat but a good cartridge choice will be able to help you overcome it. So what kind of distances are we talking? On average. IOW is it usually less than 70 yards, less than 50, less than 30?

A 28gr 7.5 will have 100 more shot (approx) than a 32 gr 6. The shot size is almost identical to the point that it is negligible. The muzzle velocities are almost the same too. Maybe 100 fps difference. So essentially a 7.5, 28gr will be better than a 32 gr 6 from the point of view it'll deliver a higher chance of a hit with very little difference in terms of killing power.

I have used the 32 gr 6 in Eley too. I found them more hit than miss. Like yourself i don't have the luxury of carrying numerous, different cartridges on me. So i chose to find one that would do everything. As most of my shooting is from 25 yards out to 55 yards i wanted something that could easily do the longest distance and hence the shorter ones would not even be an issue.

After failing to find a steady supplier of LyleVale Super Express 36 gr 5s (one of the best cartridges i've ever used) i settled on RC. The RC3 to be precise. 36gr 5. A heavy load but very effective and excellent stopping power. The thing i like is they call it a 5 but the shot size is 0.10 which is generally regarded as a shot size 7. So it means you get more shot in a higher loaded cartridge. They're not cheap, but also not so expensive as to make them not worth it. Lylavale can go up to €14 per box so anything under that and the RC were the choice. They were on average €11 per box.

grassroot1

Not all shot sizes are standard some marked 6 may actually be 5 or 5.5 (some will be in mm and some imperial) Saga were a size bigger than on the box when checked on a review I read somewhere. Cartridge speed may also have an impact on knock down power.
Your best plan might be to buy a box of different sizes and brands and try them.

BrownTrout

Thanks for the replies lads. I'm gonna grab some ammo tomorrow. I'll try a bit of everything from 28g to 36g in different shot size and report back with my finds. Thanks again

BrownTrout

Ok Got some Grand Prix in 32g, try fire off one or two over the long weekend and report back

Cass

Do a pattern test. Much better than just firing at game.