This variant is very popular and an outstanding home defense and tactical load. One issue is that no one uses a full choke on a defensive shotgun, IC is the tightest that is practical for defensive use. In a Mossberg 590A1 CYL, I have seen consistent patterns of less than 6". 000 is impressive. I have personally never had any animal take a step after being hit, but I will say it . I should mention that the stock of the Mossberg 500 prevented me from getting down on the bead sights as much as I wouldve liked, so I tended to shoot a little high using the same center-mass target. Your previous content has been restored. I actually killed all of my deer this way. Otherwise, one ends up all over the map. We didnt test it because birdshot lacks sufficient energy to penetrate at distances beyond close range and is not carried in serious social shotguns. The results chart is telling: Hit the link for the full article, pictures, and analysis, including the tutorial on back-boring. That is not hard to do since I have patterned my factory choke at 60 yards with 000b 3.5 with 75% in a 3ft circle. I have never seen an 8 pellet load in 00 buck for 12 gauge. Can 00 buckshot kill a human? Depending on the particular load and the shotgun's choke, at somewhere between 20 and 30 yards, a few of the pellets will have spread wider than the chest of a silhouette target. What is your shell/gun combo? Ballistic gelatin test results of Buckshot at 50 yards distance.Tested ammunition was:12 Gauge Federal #4 Buckshot 27 pellet (F127 4B) 2 3/4\"12 Gauge Federal Tactical 00 Buckshot 9 pellet (LE132 00) 2 3/4\"12 Gauge Hevi-Shot 00 Buckshot Dead Coyote 9 pellet (42209) 2 3/4\"12 Gauge Hornady Critical Defense 00 Buckshot 8 pellet (86240) 2 3/4\"12 Gauge Remington Express 000 Buckshot 8 pellet (12B000) 2 3/4\"Shot from a Mossberg 500 12 gauge shotgun with 20\" barrel length and full choke.Very special thanks to RW for facilitating this test. Only a soft recovery (shooting gelatin, water or cotton) will tell you which type of buckshot your shotshell produces. Posts: 1,327. Loaded with our Power-Piston one-piece wad for consistent patterns. While my HD gun is loaded with #4 buckshot (my longest shot is no more than 15 yards) .. #1 buckshot has more sectional density than the #4 buckshot so the penetration will be better at distance for any given velocity. Movies can be entertaining and those mentioned are worth watching, but dont look to Hollywood for accurate gunplay. Witness Protection 870: The 12.5-Inch Short-Barreled US Marshals Shotgun. MOLON LABE. With spherical shotgun pellets, the only way to increase sectional density is to increase the pellet size. I have heard some good things about a neat load from the Dixie Slug Company. If you have a personal-defense shotgun or one assigned to you, go out with the load you intend to carry and pattern the shotgun. With a 20-gauge, generally, No.2 buckshot is what you find. I think it retarded the wad a bit. It doesnt have the energy or penetration to break the spine past that point either. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. Type: Lead. Ammunition How Does Buckshot Perform at 50 Yards? Then there is the lung shot. Were doing something a little different today. For example: the 00 buckshot (plated, pattern-controlled) load, on average, spread 6.2 inches from the centerline of the bore by the time the shot pellets had traveled the 40 yards distance. For instance, loads of 12-gauge 00 buck are commonly available in 8 to 18 pellets depending on the lengths from 2 3/4 to 3 1/2. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Shot recovered from 50 yard penetration test. This load patterns best in all my shotguns. The information provided here does not represent the views of Cheaper Than Dirt! The 000 spreads at a linear rate instead of an exponential one, all the way out to about 50 yards. GDubya Registered Joined Mar 25, 2010 1,630 Posts BrianEnos.com Your family is worth it. In fact, at 25 yards, the 14-inch-barreled 590A1 produced a pattern 1-inch smaller than the 500. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". Larger spheres travel further and penetrate further into soft tissue than smaller spheres at any given velocity. Would you get this with birdshot? Registration on or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Service. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. Hornady has several 00 buckshot that uses their flitecontrol shot-cup wad. Display as a link instead, Size, penetration, and energy all make buckshot more lethal than birdshot. 's blog. For the longer shots, #4 buck will kill way out there. Larger buckshot can be effective in the traditional target zone. For home defense #00 buckshot seems the best choice. This sphere must penetrate a minimum of 2.95 inches (75mm) but no more than 3.74 inches (95mm)". In fact, most of the pattern doesnt cover anything at all. And the other thing, too keep in mind the forward-facing area of those was like, what, 5x6, something like that? As tested, pattern-controlled #1 buckshot presents an interesting alternative to the more traditional 00 buckshot (also pattern-controlled) in that the maximum effective range is the same but the felt recoil is reduced by 23% over the 00 buckshot load. The name's Jordan, but friends call me Jordy. This video shows the results. The pellets are clustered together more than conventional wad buckshot when they reach the choke, and they are compressed against each other leading to increased deformation. Buckshot patterns fall apart quickly. Check out this post which is one of the most popular of all time. Thats how animals run off wounded, never to be found. If you were centering a human torso on the group, only about 3 pellets would even hit the torso. Stuff You Should Know About Buckshot [Part 1], More Stuff You Should Know About Buckshot [Part 2], The Backyard Sniper Lightweight Edition, Why Wont the Ruger Mini-14 Just Die? Because I was getting junk patterns even with an IC constriction, I just wrote the stuff off. This was to ensure that all shot pellets struck the paper and could be accounted for in the further range calculation. #4 buck will pattern 100% in a 20" circle at 40 yards. After much thought I am going to stick with my 000 buckshot. Shotguns are typically considered close-range firearms, especially when loaded with buckshot. 2-3/4" with Mod. Even at 30 feet, the maximum spread with this load was 2.5 inches. One most common type of buckshot is #00 buck. Here is what I have observed: Admittedly, there is a lot more to say about buck shot, but I will leave it to the voices of experience to chime in and agree with me or set me straight. If all my shots were going to be in thick brush, I would be tempted to shoot 1 buck. I tried all of the chokes in the Buck-Kicker line from Kick's, and was refunded my money when my $35 Primos Dead Deer choke stomped them. Easily. I founded TFB in 2007 and over 10 years worked tirelessly, with the help of my team, to build it up into the largest gun blog online. With a 12 gauge shotgun and a selection of ammo from 9s to buck and slugs you can shoot anything on Earth that walks or flies. Please be respectful of others. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent. Required fields are marked *. *I have found the *rougher* the choke, the tighter the pattern, all things being equal. It made a 33 inch pattern. Your Modified choke will pattern larger . 00 Wolf 12 Gauge Ammo 2 3/4" 00 Power Buckshot 9 Pellets Our Price: $6 (WYMT) - Pikeville Medical Center's Leonard Lawson Cancer Center is expanding after an announcement by Congressman Hal Rogers and Gov The shotgun barrel patterned very well using buckshot , birdshot, and the Winchester PDX1 ammunition 12 Gauge Remington Magnum Buckshot . With standard 00 buck loads, the pattern size starts opening up quickly beyond 30-40 feet. Buckshot is designed to take deer at moderate range, an animal about the size and weight of an average human male. A 410 bore gets only 3 pellets of 000 shot per 2 3/4 shell, though there are some 5 pellet shells in 3 inch shells. This one was at 5 yards and the spread was about 5 to 6 inches. That the 1 inch of spread for every yard rule has pretty much been busted. Hunting maybe, but that was not his focus. Because they are spheres, they have a horrible sectional density. The single buckshot pellets were acquired from shotshells shot from a SAAMI 12 gauge test barrel (24 length, cylinder bore) into a cotton soft-catch box (Figure 1) and were then handloaded and shot into gelatin from low-pressure handgun cartridges (Figures 2, 3, and 4) at a wide range of velocities. Winchester 2 is equal to the 2 Remington loads. Same thing with #1 buckshot at longer ranges, more pellets, but less energy and damage per pellet. It was about 14-ish inches on the #1 and around 18 on the #00. So it was interesting to see the difference between the #1 and the #00. choke instead of IC. CHRIS: I dont know if you guys know about the #1 FliteControl, but its a difficult load to get ahold of, so we didnt have a whole lot of it on hand. All objects lose velocity as they travel through the air. Duvalls character, Boss Spearman, fires at a bad guy outside a shack wall from inside a small room. The main issue with using buckshot is to know your limitations. Join F&S+ to read exclusive stories by your favorite writers. But, I have always been intrigued by buck shot and have a shot a bunch at paper to see how it acts. You can hit more, and each pellet will do less, to the terminal end of losing its effectiveness at all. But it's only 50 feet! He has earned black belts in four martial arts and is a certified Krav Maga instructor. The procedure I fired one round of each load from each of the three different choke tubes. But that doesnt really matter. With my Rem 11/87 with a Hastings Turkey choke, I print 15" patterns . The standard sizes of buckshot are #0, #00, #000, #1 and #4 buckshot. By measuring sectional density. Velocity drops rapidly, energy of course sky dives, and the pellet will soon be eating dirt, or failing to penetrate much of anything. With the Fiocchi Low Recoil round (8 pellet) - the group opens up to 18-20" and always seems to have at least one flier. It just performs too erratically past 25 yards for me to consider. And then when we got out to 100 the #00 was doing what the #1 was doing at 50, which was kind of interesting to me. When I pattern with a MOD choke it will open it up to 10"-12" patterns with vertical stringing. Lots of little holes by themselves do not work better than one big hole. However, nothing has outperformed Remington 000 2.75" from an IC flush-mount thus-far. In apartments and houses one must always be concerned with over penetrationwho is on the other side of the wall. I tried a Carlson's Full, and it was very poor performing with 00 buck. So, we didnt actually test that one at 100, but we had plenty of the #00, so it took us, what, 11 or 12 shells to get 3 pellets in the gelatin at that distance? Just $1 per month . It does not store any personal data. This one was at 7 yards and the spread was about 9 inches. CHRIS: I think the gel blocks are 6x6 and at 100, we put two of them side by side so we had a 12x6 area were trying to hit with a big buckshot spread thats only eight pellets. The final shotgun was a Remington 870. I tried it with the basic cheap, unbuffered, unplated 9-pellet load of Winchester 00 buck (George said it worked on all buckshot from cheap to premium) and it definitely outshot my Modified choke at 40 yards, putting 4-6 pellets of a 9-pellet load into the vitals of a deer. In order to provide a further verification check, a Winchester 1300 12 gauge with 28 barrel (cylinder bore) was shot at 25 yards distance from 10% ballistic gelatin blocks with all shotshell types used in this report. RE: Buckshot for deer. Pretty much 100 percent of the pattern will be on the deer. Believe me, it works. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. What often happens with buckshot, strangely, is that two pellets will fly through the same hole. Some folks call them hermaphrodites while others swear that they're antlered does. By I did so and would put all 8 on the target about 50% of the time with maybe 1 flier 25% of the time and 2 fliers the other 25%. For most, 00 is effective enough, and the individual increase in performance is not worth the loss of a whole pellet. Believe it or not, there is a fairly good way to measure the killing power of a bullet. A 20 gauge . Big, fast, and mean, they keep their energy and danger quite a ways. And its nasty at close range. 100% are in a 30" circle. I recommend RTS Tactical for reliable, rifle-stopping options, Youre worth it. Recoil can also be increase with velocity. Anything bigger puts a serious wallop on your shoulder and the shorter ones seem to work fine. JOHN: Yeah. I have tried extended chokes, and found them to be little better, if any. With the Flite Control wad, choke has a lot to do with it. The first was a Mossberg 590A1 with 14-inch barrel, rifle sights and a Davis speed-feed stock. Deformed #4 buckshot is not acceptable for self-defense at any range, Penetration differences between shot sizes begins to become less significant with spherical #1 buckshot, Heavier buckshot has an increased ability to penetrate because of a large increase in mass with an accompanying small increase in surface area. With fed. Of course, all of that is moot if one is using a rifled slug or even the venerable pumpkin ball. The full pattern guys like smaller buckshot so they have more pellets in the target. Close patterns and solid hits are ideal, the spread is nice, but a good central hit with a tight group brings out the true effectiveness of the round. Sometimes, what seems like good advice at the time is proven later to be not so great. Federal Flite-Control 00 Buck-though that's designed as an anti-personnel load for out to 50 yards through riot guns. We chose those because, well, we like them first of all, but they hold a really tight pattern and its not feasible to do this at 50, 100 yards if youve got the pellets going all over the place.