# Shooting through ducks



## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

I went out to jump shoot ducks/geese hunting today. I was using 12 gauge 3 1/2" BB shot loaded at 1 5/16 oz and 1560 fps. 

I shot at several ducks and I saw the shot splash all around the duck but the duck flew away. There is no way several ducks could have been so perfectly contorted as to miss all the shot and have it so completely around the duck. 

The shots were 40 yards or so. Do I need to use smaller shot or something?


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## SidVicious (Aug 19, 2014)

Often when shooting at birds on the water, or going away shots, the bird gets hit, but not in the vitals. When they are on the water, they have wings blocking most of the body, and going away shots you have a bunch of bone on the back that prevents vital shots. I would say you probably put some pellets in them, but didn't get anything in the vitals or into the wings to break them. I have noticed that with BB shot I don't get nearly as great a pattern or knockdown effectiveness as I do with say 2 #2 shot. With pellets that big, its probably only putting one or two in the bird.


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## Fowlmouth (Oct 4, 2008)

It happens even when using smaller shot. 
I prefer to use smaller shot size and slower speed steel, something around 1375 fps-1400fps, but that's just me.


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## EricH (May 3, 2014)

I have no "sporting" issue with shooting ducks on the water but refrain from doing it because their vitals are mostly blocked or below water. 40 yards is a pretty long shot, but if you are comfortable at that distance, just start walking towards them and shoot right as they jump off the water. You will close some distance and have an easy shot. I think you will kill a lot more ducks that way.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

I should clarify that I was shooting at them as they jumped so they were not in the water. But they were jumping when I shot so they were not far off the water and that's how I could see where the shot hit. I was also shooting down on them from a ridge line above them. 

I dropped 4 today. But I should have had several more that walked through shot like Moses went through the Red Sea.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

Fowlmouth said:


> It happens even when using smaller shot.
> I prefer to use smaller shot size and slower speed steel, something around 1375 fps-1400fps, but that's just me.


Why is that Fowlmouth?

I would think faster ahould would be better - better penetration.


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## Fowlmouth (Oct 4, 2008)

Dodger said:


> Why is that Fowlmouth?
> 
> I would think faster ahould would be better - better penetration.


 I'm sure the physics crew will jump in and talk about kinetic energy, speed and all that good stuff, but from my personal experience I find my dog is chasing more birds (or I lose them all together) with the faster speed steel. Yes I kill the birds, but a lot of times I hit them and they just keep on flying like nothing touched them, and then all at once they just crumple in mid flight. Believe me steel shot moving 1375-1400 fps will blow through ducks, (depending on shot size and distance) so plenty of penetration. Again this is my personal preference to use slower speed steel because it works for me.


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## SidVicious (Aug 19, 2014)

Also, wouldn't the increase in speed mean more powder in the shell, and thus less pellets?


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## bug doc (Apr 19, 2008)

Just a couple of observations. I think fowlmouth's experience with his slower loads is due to denser patterns. Shotguns kill very much like a rifle - by disrupting a vital organ (brain, heart, spinal column) or by causing blood loss. The more pellets you put in a bird, the higher the probability that one of them finds a vital organ. Faster loads do lead to better penetration, but typically at the expense of pattern density, since they usually start out with smaller payloads and patterns open up faster as velocities increase. 

Shooting at birds flying over water can be a little deceiving. If it looks like the pattern is splattered all over the bird, it actually means the shot was ahead of the bird. It takes a fraction of a second for the shot column to travel past the bird to the water, and another fraction of a second for a visible disturbance in the water to be raised. In that time the bird has moved into line with the pattern in the water, making it appear it was surrounded by shot instead of the shot missing in front. 

I'm not a big fan of BB's for ducks, as the pattern density is oftentimes too low to ensure lethal hits. I like 2's & 1's for long range mallard work. Give them a try.


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## goosefreak (Aug 20, 2009)

I choose to shoot a little slower speed like 1400 FPS because I get better patterns. that is one of the big reasons why I shoot Xperts and Kent 3" 1 1/4 OZ #1 because the speed is 1400...I like the 3 inch though, now I have heard that shooting 3 1/2 can be iffy on the pattern depending on the shot size and choke tube because the theory is it has a rough time pushing out the extra BBs effectively. That's just what I hear. I don't shoot 3 1/2's


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## paddler (Jul 17, 2009)

You're not shooting through ducks. You're shooting ahead of, behind, above, below or around ducks. A 1 5/8 ounce load of BBs has just 117 pellets. At 40 yards, BBs are overkill. Number 4s have enough energy, velocity, momentum, whatever you want to call it, to cleanly kill ducks at 40 yards. Anything larger than 4s at 40 yards merely reduces your pattern density. A 1 1/8 ounce load of 4s has 214 pellets, so it's almost twice as effective as BBs. It's math.

Velocity is another question, and it's very nearly moot. MV of 1400FPS is fine. The 20 gauge Xpert load of steel 6s, which has a MV of just 1325FPS, will cleanly kill ducks to at least 30 yards. I swear the last mallard I killed with that load was at 35 yards. Fast steel (1550FPS or more) offers no advantage in the field over loads with a MV of 1400FPS.

Try a box of 2 3/4" #4s. It will probably surprise you.


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## Fowlmouth (Oct 4, 2008)

paddler213 said:


> Try a box of 2 3/4" #4s. It will probably surprise you.


 Or a box of 1 oz. 2 3/4" #6's and #7's. Over 300 pellets in the #6 and over 400 pellets in the #7's. I started shooting #7's last year and holy WOW at 30 yards what a load. Federal makes a high brass 2 3/4" #7 load that is great. It's probably not for everyone, but works great for decoying ducks, and at $6.79 box you can't knock it for the #6 or #7's.

Paddler, try those federal #7's in your O/U. You can get them at Scheels. You may like them, you may not.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

First of all, thanks to all of you for your input. I've had a lot to think about.

As far as the positioning of the ducks, I think it has to be the shot density that had me shooting around ducks. I just didn't have enough shot to knock the birds down. 

I know I wasn't shooting "through" the ducks, it just looked like it and I thought it was a funny way to describe what I was seeing. 

I think it is plausible that I was missing the ducks by a matter of 1/1560th of a second when I was shooting them (with the ducks 1 ft off the water) (and this is an estimate, I know 1560 is the MV and the shot would have slowed by the time it got to the duck). I would sneak on the duck, wait for it to jump, and then open up on it. They had maybe 2 wing flaps before I was shooting. So they weren't really moving with a lot of horizontal acceleration yet. I do not know what the time duration is of a load of shot. In other words, the pellets in front have to be ahead of the pellets in back. I just don't know the time delta for how long in time the back of the load of shot is behind the front of the load of shot, if that makes sense. If it is less than 1/FPS of the shot at the duck and the duck is 1 ft off the water, I may have just been barely in front of it.

As for the ammunition issue, which I think is the more likely culprit, I know by your experience you guys are not wrong. But, everything seems so backwards from everything I know about guns and using them to take game. So I had some trouble wrapping my head around why the smaller shot works the way you are saying it does.

I had 3 ducks jump at once yesterday. They started at about 40 yards and got farther away to about 60 yards when I dropped the 3rd one. It was like the Marianas Turkey Shoot for a minute. I couldn't miss. Bang - drop, bang - drop, bang - drop. But then a single duck at 40 yards needed a clean pair of drawers but otherwise kept right on flying. It just wasn't making sense.

Last year I was using #2 shot and I didn't feel like I was able to knock any ducks down, for whatever reason. I switched to the shells I'm using now and I started knocking them down. In fact, the first ducks I shot at with the BB ammo I knocked 2 stone dead with one shot. 

Now, I think that was just lucky given my shot density and gave me a false positive experience. 

So I'll try to vary the shot loads a little bit and see what works better. I think I want to start reloading shotgun shells so I'll be able to play with what I like a little better. But I'd like to start honing in on what works the best with factory ammo. So thank you all for the suggestions.

One more question though. My spot has a bunch of geese and a bunch of ducks. Heck, I've even seen 20 or so swans there (and they are really dumb swans - do flyovers of us 4 or 5 times in a row). But, the geese and the ducks are super spooky. It's pert near impossible to get less than 40 yards away from a duck. I haven't been close enough to a goose to even take a shot yet.

That's all a long way of saying, I have no idea what I'm going to be shooting at next. I'm not sure I want to try to pump a goose with #1 or #2 shot. I know my gun will take geese with the load I have out to 50 yards or so (experience from my "other" spot). I feel like the ammo I have is working for that and I don't really want to change that part of it. So I've been using goose shells for everything. 

How do I make sure I have the right shell in my gun when I don't know what will be flying over next?


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## rjefre (Sep 8, 2007)

Wow, so many variables. I prefer shooting #4's with less than 1400 fps personally. I also have learned over the years that killing a flushing duck past 30 yrds is *very* tough to do. I'm sure they fly away with a few pellets in them, but that is for each hunter to decide what to do. I guess the best one-shell option for long range shots (if it were me) is to use 3" #2 for both ducks and geese. I've killed many geese with 2 3/4" and 3" #4 shells... and they were stone dead. 
R


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## utahgolf (Sep 8, 2007)

man, you guys and all your thinking with speed, density etc.... just shoot the dang duck! :grin:


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## dkhntrdstn (Sep 7, 2007)

Dodger said:


> I went out to jump shoot ducks/geese hunting today. I was using 12 gauge 3 1/2" BB shot loaded at 1 5/16 oz and 1560 fps.
> 
> I shot at several ducks and I saw the shot splash all around the duck but the duck flew away. There is no way several ducks could have been so perfectly contorted as to miss all the shot and have it so completely around the duck.
> 
> The shots were 40 yards or so. Do I need to use smaller shot or something?


it sounds like your choke combo dont like that shot. Try a different shot size or choke tell you find what the gun likes and so on.


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## MWScott72 (May 23, 2011)

I like using #3s for ducks- they have a better pattern than #2s and are just abit heavier than #4s. In my experience with steel, they have performed best for me.

I used to shoot a fairly open choke (imp cylinder) which worked much like modified for lead shot. This year I choked up and shot steel with a imp modified choke and was very impressed at the improved results with hits on birds / dead vs. wounded birds. Old habits definitely die hard (especially if not challenged / changed over 20 years), but I will definitely be shooting a tighter choke for the foreseeable future!


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## steele96 (Dec 27, 2014)

Last season I used nothing but 3" #2 with a modified choke I bought a patter master mid season last year and gave up on I couldn't hit anything with it. This year I put the patternmaster back in with #4 3" around 1400fps and its a deadly combo I can confidently take 50-55 yard shots and the hit the water dead


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## dubob (Sep 8, 2007)

*My advice*

Dodger,

I have been shooting geese with 2 3/4, #4, Hevi-Shot since it first came out. I have more than a dozen witnessed kills at 70 plus yards with every shot angle accounted for. But the cost of those shells has risen to over $4 per shell - ouch!

I finally depleted my stash of Hevi-Shot this year and am now using 3", #2, Hevi-Metal - a mixture of steel & hevi-shot pellets - for geese. No 70 yard kills (yet), but clean kills out to 50 yards. The cost is just over $1 per shell and they work very well for me. I do all of my shooting with an Improved Cylinder choke tube because with waterfowl loads I get better pattern distribution than with Mod or Full chokes.

Good luck in your search for the perfect load.


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