Dove hunting with number six shot?

[Barry54]

I had a gunsmith tell me he used 1-1/4 ounce #6 for dove hunting to get more range. A buddy said he and his grandfather tried #6 one year for doves and they did terrible.

Do you like #6 for dove hunting?

[skeettx]

I use 7 1/2 and smaller for doves and 4s and 6s for pigeons.
Mike

[Bigslug]

Seems a bit like using a .454 Casull to hunt chipmunks to me. The body of a dove is basically a golf ball. There's going to come a point in your patterning with #6 shot where there are a lot of gaps bigger than a golf ball. The ounce and a quarter charge ain't a bad idea, but better to divvie it up between a higher count of smaller pellets - i.e. 7.5's.

[high standard 40]

Lethality on birds like a dove does not depend on individual pellet energy. It is more dependent on multiple pellet hits. Number 6 shot will have more energy at longer distances than a smaller shot size, but pattern density suffers. I use 1 1/4 oz 7 1/2 shot loads for longer distance capability. It those don't do the job, you are taking shots beyond an ethical range.........in my opinion.

[Electrod47]

Even when I lived in Arizona hunting the high desert using high base/heavy load 12 gauge for Dove it was 7 1/2...no need to wreck a delicacy.
Today in Texas I prefer a .410 w/#8 or if they are high up, a 20 gauge I/C 7 1/2 or #8.....Long ago hunting a stock tank in Golden Valley AZ a pal joined us one evening with the only shells he had...#4.....shredded the dove and even managed to get some lead into some dude in the next arroyo, whom was none to pleased.

[Barry54]

According to my Lyman Shotshell Reloading Handbook, 7/8 ounces of 7-1/2 shot is 302 pellets.
It takes 1-3/8 ounces of #6 to get 305 pellets.

[Plate plinker]

7.5's or 8s depends what is on the floor of Ramguys truck.

[MOshooter]

Dad was a huge wing shooter, we hunted quail every weekend. We also Dove hunted every season as well, Dove season was practice for quail season Both of these birds we always loaded 7 1/2 shot.
Pheasant we hunted with 6 or 4 shot, depending how wild they were. Dad's dogs were great though, they would honor each other and could really hold the birds.

[Iron369]

Be a man. Use slugs. lol

[redhawk0]

I've only ever used #8s....I need as many pellets as possible....hahaha

redhawk

[buckwheatpaul]

I had a gunsmith tell me he used 1-1/4 ounce #6 for dove hunting to get more range. A buddy said he and his grandfather tried #6 one year for doves and they did terrible.

Do you like #6 for dove hunting?

I have always used AA's with 7-1/2 or 8 shot....does a great job!

[Texas by God]

Double A’s with 7-1/2 or 8 shot no matter if using .410, 20 or 12 gauge at the old O’Brian/Knox City hunts of my youth.

[HWooldridge]

Sometimes the larger shot helps when they are flying high on the first norther of the year. #6 also usually punches through so you’re not chewing on lead pellets.

[CBH]

Lead 6’s are good for everything, small game wise in Kali. 7.5 for dove is ok. Steel 6’s are good, too.

[SSGOldfart]

7 1/2 unless 6 is all I can find at the time....

[challenger_i]

#6 shot? Never saw a dove I was that mad at...

And TBG: I played football against O'Brian in High School!

[Mk42gunner]

Dad taught me to use 7 1/2 for dove and quail (Bobwhite), some times #9 if they were close. He did not like #8 for some reason. #6 for rabbits and squirrels, #4 for ducks.

I found out that #5 shot works very well for squirrels by buying some very old Winchester ranger loads when I was a kid. From the looks of the boxes and shells they were from the 60's.

12 gauge field loads of 3 1/4/ 1 /4oz/#6 also works fine for early season decoyed ducks.

I never got that deep into waterfowl to buy a steel shot capable gun when the law changed to require it everywhere, so I haven't hunted ducks in almost half a century.

Robert

[Digital Dan]

7-1/2 or 8, end of story.

OTOH, I rediscovered something about 25 years ago. Having an interest in saving money for clays shooting I started loading the 12 ga with 7/8 oz #9 shot. It worked far better than I expected and oddly enough, shot tighter patterns from an IC choke than normal loads through a FC. Did a little research and discovered such things were well known many decades ago. Closer to square shot charge (diameter/length) the tighter the pattern.

[Texas by God]

#6 shot? Never saw a dove I was that mad at...

And TBG: I played football against O'Brian in High School!

6 man or 8 man football; I don’t recall.
My friend grew up there!


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[35 Rem]

I shot a LOT of blackbirds for years since we had a year round roost right across the road from our house so I got to do a lot of load testing. My load for a long time was 18 grains Red Dot and 1 1/8 ounces of shot. Pretty much duplicated the common factory "Field Load". I tried a bag or two of #9 shot but unless the bird was real close I got lots of cripples that had to be chased and shot again. It was easier to hit but without a clean kill I decided against #9 as a general-purpose wing shooting load. I tried many bags of #7 1/2 and #8 and can't really tell a difference. They both do the job very well. When you go to #6 you start losing pellet count and since #7 1/2's work so well I don't see value with going larger at the expense of getting too many holes in your pattern. One positive that I stumbled on with all the bird shooting was when I decided to try 1 ounce loads and dropping my powder charge down to 16 grains Red Dot for the sake of economy. Practically speaking these "weaker" loads gave up nothing as far as performance goes. It sometimes felt as if they might add some range. I think part of it may have been due to less pellet deformation which led to straighter flight. I found all this applied equally well in the dove field.

I did do some shooting with heavier loads which duplicated the old "Duck and Pheasant" factory loads, which used 24 grains of Unique and 1 1/4 ounces of shot. I usually reserved these loads for shot sizes from #4 up to #6 and every now and then #7 1/2. I really couldn't tell any difference in performance on birds but admittedly that isn't as scientific as shooting a large number of pattern boards and quantifying the results. Surely there has to be some gain in going up to 1 1/4 ounces shot.