WILDFOWL's Editor-in-Chief, Skip Knowles, knows the need of studying your shot shells to maximize your performance in the field. (Photo credit: Scott Haugen)
January 10, 2025
By Scott Haugen
Good shooters rarely have bad days shooting. If they do, it’s usually due to high winds, competing with fellow hunters in a big blind, or they switched shotgun shells; typically, it’s the latter.
On a solo hunt last season, I was testing a highly touted bismuth load I’d never shot before. I’d fired 22 rounds and had only two ducks to show for it. There was a steady 5 MPH breeze coming from behind me and birds were dropping into the decoys head-on. Every shot was an easy 20–35-yard attempt.
Out of sheer frustration I switched loads. I went from the bismuth that failed me, to the five Kent bismuth loads I had in my pocket. The shells were 3” #5 shot. I’d shot Kent’s before and trusted them. Over the next fifteen minutes I fired five shots, cleanly killed five ducks, and went home with a limit. The experience reaffirmed that changing loads greatly influences how you shoot and that there’s often a reason for those off-days.
I’ll never badmouth a piece of equipment because it failed me one time, like the bismuth had. I could have gotten a lemon, or often a shell simply doesn’t perform well with my chosen gun and choke tube.
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If I find something I like, however, I want to tell people about its performance. In this case, Kent’s bismuth loads. I shot them on multiple occasions last season and it’s the best pure bismuth load I’ve used in my Browning Maxus. I averaged almost one duck per shell fired. Kent’s proprietary bismuth loads further caught my attention after I cut a shell open and compared it to other brands. In the Kent shells I found round pellets with few flaws. Not only were there many misshapen pellets in the other brands I inspected, but they ranged in size from considerably smaller, to much bigger than the #5 stamped on the shell. Some had very deep abrasions, and even flattened edges.
The rounder and smoother an object, the truer it will fly—it’s simple physics. Every great load I’ve shot, regardless of the alloy, is round. Misshapen pellets or pellets with flaws are fine out to 22 yards in my gun, then things quickly fall apart.
From what I have seen since the shot shell shortage a couple of years back—which hunters are still struggling with—different loads vary out of different guns. I’ve even had the same loads pattern differently in two guns of the same model with the same chokes.
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Just because your gun doesn’t perform well with a load, doesn’t mean it’s a bad one. Last season I tried Migra’s bismuth/steel blend on a duck hunt over decoys in a small pond. It shot poorly in the inertia gun I borrowed that day, and I went 2 for 18. It was frustrating. But because the gun, choke and loads were all unfamiliar to me, I gave the Migra another chance two days later with my Maxus with a full choke. In eight shots with the same Migra load I killed seven ducks. The next day I tried the load in a different Maxus, again, with a full choke, and it didn’t shoot well. I swatted a cripple on the water at 40 yards and the pattern fell well short of the duck. I knew the load I used was as good as any I’d ever shot in my first Maxus; it just didn’t perform in the other two guns. That really illustrated how differently rounds can perform in various guns and chokes.
Speaking of chokes, I was on a writer’s hunt last season. A hunt where companies invite writers to test gear. I was asked to shoot a bismuth/steel blend in an inertia driven shotgun using an improved cylinder. I thought it was a joke. But when the hosts changed out all the chokes to improved cylinder, I saw they were serious. Surprised, I asked them to explain.
They said it was the best setup they’d seen in the many timbered hunts they’d been on in the past couple of months. I bit my tongue, hoping to learn something. We were hunting an open pond and there were multiple hunters in the blind. I fired 17 shots and killed three ducks. Everyone was missing, most shot two boxes and weren’t close to their six-bird limit. Furthermore, numerous swatter shots on the water showed the loads opening up much too fast, spraying pellets in a pattern that would have covered a bus at 30 yards.
The setup was doomed from the outset. After the frustrated string of misses I replaced my choke with a modified one. The next three shots killed three ducks and I was done. Later in the season, I shot that same load in my Maxus and it worked great. In this scenario, what brand of shell and gun I used on the first hunt doesn’t matter. What matters is the load was dismally mismatched to the choke and gun for the style of hunting we were doing that day.
I was on a recent hunt with three friends, all great shots, and all very patient. It was blowing a steady 20 mph, gusting to even more. I was on the upwind side of the panel blind which meant I was shooting last. Because I knew these guys would let the birds work, I went with the Kent bismuth #5s that day and killed ducks with authority.
Soon after that I was invited on a hunt that found seven shooters in the blind, only one of which I knew. For that hunt I chose HEVI-Shot’s tungsten loads. I’m glad I did because many of the shooters were new. It was always a race to shoot, which meant they pulled the trigger too soon on decoying ducks. One was so trigger happy he sat with his gun on the edge of the blind, aiming at ducks when they were mere dots in the sky. His shooting window wasn’t 10:00-2:00, more like 9:00-3:00 and Noon-6:00. I was glad I brought the tungsten loads because I doubt I’d have killed a bird that day using a less lethal load. In this case, I chose a load that fit the hunting situation.
I hunt with my 83-year-old dad more than anyone. These are special times for both of us. His favorite gun is also a Maxus, but he prefers a modified choke. He’s experimented with different loads over the years and prefers sticking to what he knows. When he started shooting Baschieri & Pellagri Dual Steel loads of 2 and three shot, he never looked back. By exclusively shooting this one brand, Dad intimately knows how the 1 1/8-ounce load flies in all conditions. He shoots it with stunning accuracy. He also loves the biodegradable wad.
Once you truly know a shotgun shell and how it performs in your gun, your shooting success will escalate. The best part is that you’ll shoot with confidence and understand when and why a miss occurs, not dismissing it to an off day.
