Originally Posted by
338MAN mk2
Growing up hunting a central north island pine forest for pigs with shotgun only rules i have shot many critters with shotguns and have tried many different loadings.
A short H&R single with sights was good with the Breneke slugs out to 50yds but running targets were hard.
Buckshot was worse until we changed guns to the Baikal with its super long and tight choked barrel. We were consistently dropping pigs out to 50yds and would put enough pellets in to slowup the 50-75yds ones that the dogs would sort them.
I went a step further and started to carry my Rem 11-87 duck gun full of 00 and mod choke and had great success.
With shotguns more than any other guns you have to match the load to the gun or barrel or choke.
You should pattern any load before hunting with it. We found a huge difference in performance between Buckshot loads. Not always related to price.
We shot everything from cheap as chip bulk shells to super expensive the latest and greatest and tried to better them all with reloads but by far the best across the board loading was the winchester 9 ball buffered 00.
