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I bet they are bigger than a #4.

I haven't used them much on pheasant specifically, but I did pattern the loads and have used other sizes on quail, grouse, Ptarmigan, and chukar. The kent faststeels and teal steal. They seem consistent to me and patterned well.

+1 for the Gatorade bottles. Don't have to fumble with lids when having gloves and I find the flow is easiest to control. It can leak if you lay it down and squish it, but for the most part I have no problems.

I think their shot size is before the copper plating. a 3.5 shot would have 140/ounce with normal bismuth density 9.4. If the shot is true then it would be a density of 10.8 which would be impressive. Or maybe a combination of more dense and slight bigger pellet. Any chance you can do a water...

I'm sorry what? The wings and legs aren't vitals. And a head on shot or side profile is clearly easier to hit the head or heart than going through the ass. What other shots are there?

Yeah I might be biased because I'm a tech junkie, but the GPS systems are so worth it in my opinion. I literally never worry about where my dogs are or if they are chasing things. Which makes the hunt way more enjoyable. Not to mention the quietness of it. No calling the dog back every 15...

I've also been paying attention to ear protection recently. The electronics annoy me too much with wind noise and dead batteries. I've settled on the mechanical ear buds. They certainly don't provide full protection, but are way better than nothing. Something like Orvis Adaptive Hearing...

Only if you aren't adding to the list during the off season. I'm always adding pins for places that look good from the map. And then either walk them or try to drive by before the season. But I already know the spots I'll hit openers.

For sure. After the season, before the season and middle of the off season I think about bird hunting. And then during the season I think about hunting while hunting.

I have depending on what I am shooting. Still figuring out what the relationship between shooting and recoil is though. Obviously possible to go too high, but even moderate levels might be making for a worse shot. Your body naturally tightens up on the shot, so have even less recoil might...

I've been on a journey of increasing success rates and was trying some 1600 1 5/8 ounce loads. Very quickly realize its not the power of the shell that determines if you kill it. Even if you think you can handle 3 shots a day, there's no way you aren't developing some flinch recoil to them.

I do agree I get too held up on a few % differences, when hunting has way way more variables just on shot opportunity. But I can do a lot of theoretical analysis from home/ year round. Can't just go run different loads and shoot tons of pheasants with each. although I would love to.

Yeah I had 1.5 " originally, but when shooting pheasant, it just wasn't doing as well as I thought it should. The 1.75" feels better and does show why steel is much harder. Granted we are trying to put exact numbers to something that has soo many variables on a shot.

It actually does get squared. Do a 1 ounce load and 2 ounce load of anything in your calculator and it does 4 times the recoil. Same if you do 1000 vs 2000 fps. The reason is that momentum is transferred mass times velocity into the gun. Which the gun then has energy that is Velocity squared...

If I run that load for 1.5 inches I get 45 yards. A lot depends on the air pressure (temp/elevation).

It's not very substantial, but it is there. While faster things slow down faster a 1600 fps vs 1300 fps (23%) will still be 10-15% faster time on target. I don't have my time in flight calculator so I don't have exact numbers but I would rather have that boost than not. Again, depends on pattern...

I could go really deep into ballistics from the theory aspect.

Oof. KSP is Kerbal Space Program (a game). I meant to type KYP which is one of the standard shotshell ballistics programs people use.

Increasing 1 shot size decreases pellet count. If you bump up the payload to match pellet count then the recoil is the same as bumping velocity. I would actually be curious if anyone has KSP KPY to compare my numbers as I had made my own calculator. I used minimum 1.75 inches of penetration for...

I agree with the others, after 7 months is easily capable of hunting. Just introduce gun fire correctly by doing some bird work while someone else shoots a distance away and then work in closer if they dog doesn't react bad to it. Typically fine, but worst thing you could do is make a hunting...