[redactor]

Some friends and I are going on our first pheasant hunt in a month or so. One of them will be using his hand-me-down 1970's vintage 12 ga Browning auto-loader.

Does anyone know if the Fiocchi nickel-plated Golden Pheasant loads are safe to fire in older guns like this? I know that steel-shot is too hard, and can cause damage, but I haven't heard anything about nickel plated shot.

These will be the 1485 fps, 2 3/4", #4 loads.

Thanks.

[ArmedBear]

Has he ever used 1485 fps loads in the old Browning?

Is it an Auto-5?

If so, he'd best make sure it's set up for those things, not low-recoil range loads or something, and test it. Auto-5s have blasted themselves apart at my club more than once.

That said, why not just use #5 lead shot if he's not sure? It'll work fine, and you can buy it at lots of stores. Why would he need to use that Fiocchi stuff if there's a shadow of a doubt? Are you expecting really long range shots or something?

Missing the bird altogether is a bigger obstacle to getting a limit of birds than using standard ammo that has put birds on the table for a hundred years.

BTW are these farm/pen-raised pheasant? If so, you really don't need those shells. Before the lead shot ban, people hunted goose with loads like that.

[redactor]

Has he ever used 1485 fps loads in the old Browning?

We've used 1300 fps #8 loads with it before with no problem.

Why would he need to use that Fiocchi stuff if there's a shadow of a doubt? Are you expecting really long range shots or something?


This is the first time any of us have done this, so we really don't know what to expect. I know that these aren't "magic" shells, and that we'll have to do our part. We're just looking for any extra edge we can get.

They are farm-raised birds, since that is all that is available in Alabama.

[rcmodel]

A 1970's Browning A-5 is a vintage gun?
Oh my God! :eek:

The only thing that relatively brand new Browning A-5 won't handle is steel or some of the other super-hard shot designed for waterfowl.

The classic barrels are too thin at the muzzle, and they are not hard-chrome lined to resist scoring.

BTW: Your best pheasant shooting will be done with hunting loads of approximately the same MV as your practice loads.

Switching to those High-Speed Low-Drag loads the day you go hunting will just mess up your swing & follow-through on moving targets.

If you are hitting with trap loads, you will be shooting in front of everything with those 1,485 fps super-sonic-son-of-a-guns!

You have to hit them before you can kill them!
Kill them rather easily too, with 1 1/4 of standard velocity #5 lead shot.

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j219/rcmodel/KTOG/1224.gif
rcmodel

[ArmedBear]

In about a month, I'll be going to a fundraiser farm-raised pheasant shoot for a club I belong to. We are restricted to #8 shot. People who have done it a few times say that works fine.

Even #5 is overkill, and 1 1/8 oz. is plenty. The only purpose of more shot weight is to get more pellets in the pattern when using big pellets. Unless you're hunting turkey, only a few pellets will hit the bird anyway. The vast majority just drops to the ground somewhere past the target.

1 1/8 oz of #6 at 1200-1290 should be absolutely plenty, and it will shoot more like what you're used to. Furthermore, you can get them at Wally World for cheap.

I handload, and there's a big difference between a 1300 fps load and a 1485 fps load. Totally different powder, charge, and pressure curve. Those old Auto-5's are not self-adjusting, either. A regular load won't require any tweaking, or any practice with different POA as rcmodel said. Also, with that significant of a change, you really ought to pattern all the guns you're using. Do you really want to blast a bunch of expensive ammo you don't need to be using, to test it, when you could just use regular loads and hunt just fine?

I mean, you could hunt deer with a 20mm cannon, too, but why?

[redactor]

rcmodel:
A 1970's Browning A-5 is a vintage gun?
I meant "vintage" to simply to indicate that it was made some time in the 1970's time-frame, not that it was a "vintage gun."

ArmedBear:
Even #5 is overkill

My intent to use #4 shot was that we all are fairly decent shooters, so we shouldn't need as wide a pattern (hopefully), and that there would be less pellets to pick out at the end of the day. Maybe that was faulty logic, but as I said we've never done this before.

You have twisted my arm on those Wally-World #6 loads. I was looking at the Fiocchis because I didn't want to skimp if it was needed. It sounds to me like it isn't needed, and my Wally-World has those for $39/flat instead of $130/flat for the Fiocchis. So, I won't have much of a problem with picking up an extra flat to practice with before the hunt.

[huntershooter]

1 1/8 oz. #6 shot is God's plenty for pen raised birds. Especially if you're hunting over dogs. If so, shots will be fairly close. The Fiocchi load you ask about is sure to induce a flinch in short order. Use enough load to get the job done without "overkill", on both ends of the gun. I regularly use 7/8 oz. #71/2's out of a 20 ga.for released birds behind dogs. Easy to carry, kills great.