how far will 12 ga. #8 bird shot go?

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spudster

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My girl friend lives in the country and I was wondering how far would that shot go. We are wanting to manually toss clays in their back yard.

Thanks guys.
 
I am just worried about hitting a far far away neighbors house.

Thanks for the replies.

What do you guys think?
 
Most shotgun ranges specify 7.5 as the largest shot allowed, with a (I think) 1 dram powder load as max. I think all the shot will have dropped 150 yards max in that case, but I'm a little fuzzy on that.
 
At 40 yds with a full choke you'll be able to turn a clay target to dust if you get it in the center of the pattern. I've occasionally broken targets with #8's a few feet above ground at the end of their flight from a regulation trap when shooting "fun-n-games" from 10 yds behind the fantail. That puts the targets out at 80 to 90 yards. At that range they're not usually broken very hard.

How far the shot will travel is a lot further than its effective range. With elevation you can sprinkle shot on someone at 200 yds usually without any damage unless it caught someone in an eye.
 
As far as I could find, most clay range planning is done by calculating a 300yd fall zone.
(Most shot won't make it that far, but better safe than sorry.)
That basically means 19 acres per trap box.

I wish I could find the documents that said the 300yds fall zone, they were handy.
 
The Journee formula cited by Whole Hog is pretty close. When we were building a new trap and skeet field, the club president went out to about 240 yards with a sheet of plywood to shelter under while being shot at. He could hear the # 7 1/2 sprinkling on the plywood as it fell out of the sky. No 8 will not go quite as far but the 300 yards cited by LightningCrash would be a good safety margin in case somebody picked up a box of no 6s.
 
Note that hand-thrown clays can be broken with skeet shot (#9), or maybe even "dust" or snake shot (#12) which you can get from Fiocchi in factory shells.

http://www.cheaperthandirt.com/AMM811-1.html

Depends on how far you throw them.

A regulation American Trap house is 27 yards from the back of the field, so no shots are taken at under about 40 yards. #8 will break targets as far out as the targets go; I like #7.5 for far handicap because the shot keeps going a bit faster, which makes for easier pointing at 60-70 yard crossing targets or fast Wobble, but #8 will break 'em just fine at that distance.

OTOH after shooting a rabbit (a cottontail to eat, not a sporting clays "rabbit" target) at 60+ yards in a feedlot with #8, I would not do that again. It's not ethical for hunting, and it took multiple shots to kill it. So #8 is hardly lethal at that distance, but it can cause injury, and could easily blind someone if it hit them in the eye.
 
Shot can in ideal conditions travel 400 yards.

Ie; angle of the gun and with a tail wind.

When it goes that far it's powered by gravity
not the powder that sent it on it's way when it
hits the floor.

At that range to hurt a person a pellet would
have to hit them in the eye .
 
200-250 yards sounds about right based on my dove hunting experience. Ypu get shot rained on you from the other side of the dove field at about that range.
 
How far will shot go

Well over here in Britain i believe the exclusion range for No 6 shot on clay shoots is 350 yds.
 
Doesn't mean he was shooting at the optimum angle for maximum range. Regulation Skeet involves many different angles of elevation around a 180 degree field, and the shot can carry out farther than that. Like I said, my club DID IT.
 
My friends & I shoot each other accross dove fields all the time; 300 yrds is about all I have seen. Let me be carefull to state this is nearly straight up, barely angled lobs of #8; gentle rain is all you get. Don't say you've never done it! It's a hoot...

OK, just kidding, I would never engage in such juvenile, dangerous tomfoolery.:rolleyes:
 
Ive rained shot on the tin roof shed thats beside our dove field plenty of times out around 150yd. Im sure they will go farther with the right angle. Ive also had them rain down on me too, when multiple shooters are in the same field. Like mentioned above, at 100yds the pattern is really spread out, and its very unlikely you'll be hit with more than a couple shot.

The best way to tell how far the shots travel and at what pattern they will be in at what distance is to find a big pond or other body of water that is unoccupied and smooth(no wind). Then pick your distance and elevation, and let the shots rain. My dad and his buddy used to do this when trying different chokes.
 
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