16ga.com ~ View topic

Joined: 27 Apr 2005 Posts: 380 Location: Northeast Ohio

Since we're less than a month from the opener and just for the sake of discussion, what do you like?

Back in my pre-16 days my standard 12 load was an ounce of hard 8's at 1180-1200. I took many a limit with them and sailed very few. Now, using my 16 gun exclusively for the past 3-4 years, I've used factory black Rems in 7 1/2 (which is all I can buy locally) and I'm of the opinion they are as lethal as the handloaded hard 8's I used to use.

Oddly, one big reason I use the factory Rems is to use them up to get the hulls for skeet, which I do way more than dove annually. The rems are way to stout for my recoil tolerance on the skeet field and hunting with them allows me to meet two goals at once: new hulls for soft skeet loads; and dove for the table.

Anybody want to convince me to handload 16 ga. 8's to put more birds in the bag? If so I guess I'll learn to suffer a few times each year and shoot up the factory rems on the skeet field to get my hulls.

Anybody have any data or study results on lethality for dove regarding shot sizes? I haven't read Brister for quite awhile and when I do it's a library special order, so I don't have quick access to that expert opinion. I know soft shot can be a problem but I'm not crippling birds with the Rems so far. Anybody have any idea what the antimony content is on the Rems? I'm going to contact the factory and see what they say but I'm afraid I won't get a straight answer.

What say you? Good shooting to all come Sept. 1st.

I've shot doves with everything from 1 1/8 oz 7.5's in 12 ga to 3/4 oz 9's in 28 ga. If you hit them they fall out of the sky. Now, I'm talking about Arizona shooting where the doves look like a B-17 bomber raid on Germany. They just keep coming so you wait for an easy shot.

Never having shot in Ohio I don't know what range you are shooting the birds at. Your shots may be farther and fewer but 1 oz of 8's will certainly drop them for you, and give you plenty of empty hulls.

This year I've loaded some 7/8 oz. 8's for my 16. This will be the first year I've had it for doves but I don't anticipate any problems...except for the doves.

In 16 I usually use 7/8 oz. of 7 1/2 or 8 shot. In my 28 I use a 3/4 ounce load. A lot of my buddies insist on shooting 1 1/8 ounce 12 gauge loads -- for them the resulting bruise on their shoulder is a badge of honor. I, on the other hand, am allergic to pain.

7/8 Oz. of 7 1/2 shot @ 1150 fps.

Like most bird hunting, using that right load for the conditons is critical to success. I've hunted doves under a fairly wide range of conditions from a community hunt over a sunflower field to taking them from a blind over a waterhole at dusk. The first one is probably some of the toughest shooting I've ever been faced with, and the last some of the easiest.

After the birds get shot at a few times by a bunch of folks sitting around the edges of a sunflower field, they become wary, elusive and tricky to hit. They stay high and flit around like bats. Here, I would not think anyone would be overgunned with a 12 ga and a 1-1/8 ounce handicap trap load. In a 16, 1 ounce of #7.5 hard shot at 1250 FPS would be the ticket. Mod and full for me thanks.

At the waterhole, incomers can be picked off with a .410 and a 1/2 ounce of #8 shot out of a skeet choke barrel. Here, a 5/8 ounce 16 ga load of #8 shot would do the trick. It would be like shooting a .410 but even more effective. A 3/4 ounce or 7/8 ounce load should handle anything in between these two extremes.