combine different size shot in one shell

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beachwalker

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Going turkey hunting tomorrow. Taking 4's in my shotgun, but had a thought....would it be good to have a load a person could buy with 2's and 4's mixed in the same load? Seems to be it would have some advantages.

What do you think, bad idea??
 
Its been done, I remember seeing one of the major ammo mfg's advertising something similar a few years back. I imagine it flopped.

What are the advantages? Seems that if you want some distance turkey hunting, and load up with #2 shot, you're wasting pattern space by mixing that with #4 shot. At the closer range, your pattern will be tighter. At longer range, you need more shot in the pattern to ensure a hit. Why mix the load?
 
Only thing I can think of is that shot is between "long and short". No biggie, just ran through my mind as i sat in the woods today here in the Ozark hills. Life is good.
 
Would you have to hand stack, like buckshot, or would you just mix it and pour? Don't think you could drop a consistent weight of mixed shot
 
Its called Duplex loads. Some turkey hunters use it to balance loads. #6's for inside 20 yards, and #4's for out to 40 all in 1 shell.

You can mix it in your loader hopper but the double check your weights, you will usually get shorted a bit-
 
Remington tried it a few years ago and I think Federal tried it also. Didn't go over too well.
 
But, why? Won't the #4's be just as effective inside 20 yards? And, so, if the #6 isn't as effective further out, why compromise the room in the shell by mixing the #6's in?
 
#4s will be just as effective at 20 yards as the #6's but the #6's make up for the lack of pattern of #4's at that range or so the theory goes.

I just use hevi-shot and call it quits-
 
I saw something of that nature in the Sportmans Guide. The round had a slug plus 5 bucks. They were something like $2/shot.
 
I use a mix of 4 and 6 shot for squirrels. 4s give me penetration, and the 6 fill out the pattern. I have patterned them thoroughly with my old Stevens single shot full choke 20 gauge, and they pattern very well from my gun. I also use a 2/4 combination for pest control, ie racoon, ferel cats, ground hogs etc, and that load works very well for my uses. I load the shot into the shells manually for "duplex" loads. I do not feed it through a shot hopper on my MEC.
 
Duplex Loads

Winchester made a few good duplex loads for geese. I still have a couple of boxes (lead) with a combination of T shot and BB. They seemed to work fine when they were legal (would probably work even better now).

FYI, my favorite turkey load is the Winchester Supreme Turkey Load in 10 gauge (2 1/4 oz of copperplated 6 shot, 4 1/4 dram load). I took two gobblers last week with the Browning Auto 10 gauge turkey gun with the 20 inch barrel and special turkey choke. One at 20 yards and another at 42 yards. Neither one of them moved over 10 feet. It's a devastating dense load. There's no noticeable recoil with that gun, it weighs 10 pounds.
 
The problem is loss of pattern density. At twenty yards you get a nice dense pattern, but at 40 you "lose" the lighter shot, and so have less of the effective heavier shot to do the job. The idea was also applied to steel waterfowl loads..., again at the longer range you had less pellets with enough energy to do the job. Plus the cost was greater than simple one size shot loads.

The buck and ball loads mentioned are not the same idea. They are meant to be fired from cylinder bore guns in a confined area like a room or a WWI trench, possibly in low light, or historically by a line of Continental musketmen at Redcoats at about 20 yards. The idea is devastating secondary damage in addition to the primary projectile.

LD
 
The buck and ball loads mentioned are not the same idea. They are meant to be fired from cylinder bore guns in a confined area like a room or a WWI trench, possibly in low light, or historically by a line of Continental musketmen at Redcoats at about 20 yards. The idea is devastating secondary damage in addition to the primary projectile.
Click to expand...

This is exactly true. The army used buck-and-ball as late as the Civil War (not everyone had rifle-muskets).
 
Why not use #5 or #3 shot. I know it's harder to find but it would give you all the advantages over the duplex load with none of it's specific drawbacks.
 
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