Thanks for all the continued responses! A bit of an update, a friend with a good bird dog decided he liked hunting with me so I got out a lot this fall for pheasants, both game farm birds (dog training) early on and then wild birds as the fall seasons opened. Never found any load I was looking for when I made it to a store. But did end up picking up a box of Winchester Super Pheasant that I used for some of this fall. I had a brain fart before this last weekend looking at empty shell boxes and scrambled to find something for my last pheasant outing. The local shop sold me a 3” load of Fiocchi Golden Pheasant 6’s that I never ended up using due to my shell pockets being full in my vest from the prior outing.
Basically I ended up trying to use up partial boxes that I had of various makes, shot sizes, etc and wouldn’t you know it, my shooting stayed relatively the same or better than normal since I shot more in the field this year than I did on clays.
Now a bit of story:
I don’t really know why but I started the season with a half dozen or so of the remaining box of Federal 5’s I originally posted about and sparingly used them. I had two left for my last outing this past weekend to try and use them up with as much nostalgia as I could muster. Started the day with one in the chamber and the last one next in line. The first bird to get up was a big rooster that rocketed out of some Russian olives in front of us and presented a beautiful crossing shot. It would have been prettier if it had been 20 yards closer though. This bird flew left to right and I swung past him and pulled the trigger. Sure of my own expertise in wing shooting I expected to see him crumple. Instead, he just kept on flying, looking pristine, as he flew over the cattails and landed with a giant middle finger in my direction. Dumbfounded. I was so sure of the shot that I never even cycled the gun until after he had landed. In hindsight it was a very long shot that I probably had no business shooting at anyways. One shell left.
I topped off the magazine and went looking for the next one. A few hundred yards later I got my chance as another rooster got up in front of the dog and presented a left to right quartering shot. With the last of my magical shells ready to go, again I swung through this rooster and pulled the trigger folding this rooster as if I knew what I was doing. I must have even impressed my partner with my excellent shooting as he complimented me on not missing.
My bird season is all but wrapped up. I hunted for pheasants more than chukars/huns this year. My shooting greatly improved when I reminded myself that I didn’t need to shoot at every Hail Mary shot and to slow down. I’ve never been very fast at follow-up shots with my pumpgun as I’ve mostly hunted without dogs and it’s always been better for me to mark birds where they fall. I lost a few birds by forgetting that this year with my friend’s young dog and instead focusing on trying for multiples.
For chukars and Huns I tried using these older Estate 6’s I had figuring the lighter payload was going to be enough to bring the smaller birds down even though my pattern would be less dense. It didn’t seem to matter as these birds were still humbling and yet I managed to bring home some each time out.
I think I worry too much about shells as I ended up using four different loads this year with no real difference in my success rates. I think for how I shoot a shotgun I gotta just settle roughly on a load of 1-1/4oz 5’s or 6’s north of 1300 fps and be done with it. Actually patterning the load with my gun/choke would probably be beneficial too. I’m still wanting to find a good nontoxic option and will probably give BOSS a try next year. Seems like the last time I was on their website I found a tempting load of 5’s that was calling to me.
Thanks for reading my late night rambling.
