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Thread: Guinea Fowl Shot Recommendations
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14-09-2018, 14:00 #11
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Re: Guinea Fowl Shot Recommendations
Sorry, I know this is a REALLY old thread. We talk about shot size, but what would be the difference between use of say, 6's with a full choke and 4's with a modified choke, assuming both are the same shot weight (32gr)?
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14-09-2018, 14:05 #12
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Re: Guinea Fowl Shot Recommendations
Choke should not influence shot penetration, only spread.
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14-09-2018, 16:58 #13
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Re: Guinea Fowl Shot Recommendations
Eish! Difficult call. For guineafowl if I had to choose between those 2 I'd probably use 4's with modified choke because of better penetration but I can also see the argument that if you used 6's with full choke you'd get a lot more pellets into the bird due to higher pellet count, more pellets in the air & smaller pattern.
First prize for guineas would be 4's with full choke.
On birds smaller than guineafowl I'd use 6's with full choke but if I have 4's in the gun and a bird gets up I still go for it.
I prefer to use 32 or 35g 5's with 3/4 to full choke as an all round load for terrestial type birds & ducks but I'd prefer to go to no 3's if geese were involved.
If I'm shooting pigeons exclusively I use clay pigeon ammo - 28g 7 1/2 with full choke. If a guineafowl got up while I was walking with this load in the gun I'd like to believe I'll let it get away.
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14-09-2018, 23:21 #14
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Re: Guinea Fowl Shot Recommendations
I've never seen the need for certain chokes on guineafowl. 32 grain number 5's always works the best for me although have had success with smaller shot.
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
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15-09-2018, 07:49 #15
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Re: Guinea Fowl Shot Recommendations
A 22 rim fire is not allowed in the taking of game birds in most [all?] provinces in south africa.This is for good reason,a Gyppo for eg.,will very seldom be put down on the spot by even a well placed 22 bullet.These birds will fly off and die beyond the distance enabling the hunter to recover it.
On the other hand,multiple simultaneous hits by relatively small shotgun pellets will kill instantaneously even if the individual pellets themselves do not do "massive organ damage" as you would expect from a hunting bullet used on buck.At best,each pellet will poke a tiny hole in the goose and even without heart/lungs being directly hit...that goose is dead. This is caused by the cumilative effect of those multiple,simultaneous hits that 'shock' the bird to death by closing down its central nervous system.
The same obviously applies to Guinea's.
The single biggest cause of lost birds besides missing is distance.The effective killing distance of the totally inneficient round blobs of lead fired from a shotgun fall off dramatically by each 5m increment in distance.
As the distance increases,so the shotgun pattern opens up and there becomes more space between the pellets,untill you get to a stage where,even with a good shot,only 1 or 2 pellets will hit the bird.This will have less effect than a 22 rimfire and you have also lost the multiple pellet hit effect on the central nervous system.Result...lost wounded bird.
So,what to do......use no.5's instead of 1's or 2's...this will increase the pattern density and result in more pellets hitting the bird. Sure,but at distance,this ain't gonna work either for the simple reason that the smaller pellets lack the oomph to penetrate breast and wing feathers.As an extreme eg. i have and been present at tens of occasions where a high flying Gyppo or Spurwing has been shot and the only physical reaction is hearing the pellets hit the goose which carries on flying.
So,the answer is balancing pattern density to individual pellet energy? Yes,to a certain extent....but it comes back to distance.
I will stick my neck out here and say that shooting within +- 35-40m max is far more critical than the selection of shot size.However,the smaller shot sizes are more effective within these distances.
I have found that 4's or 5's are all that is needed for ducks,geese,francolin and guineas. 7' for rockies and 9's for quail.
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18-09-2018, 09:14 #16
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18-09-2018, 18:01 #17
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Re: Guinea Fowl Shot Recommendations
All good...
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27-09-2018, 15:44 #18
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Re: Guinea Fowl Shot Recommendations
For my 5 cents worth. I use 6's in the open barrel and 5's in the choked barrel. I reduce my shooting distance to to approximately 30 metres and only use the second barrel if I have pricked a bird with the first shot. I use a 20 gauge for nearly all my shooting and have found that this works best for me. I know my late father only used 7's on guinea fowl and restricted his shooting range and he did not loose many birds in his life time. He would also turn down birds going directly away from him.
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28-09-2018, 05:38 #19
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Re: Guinea Fowl Shot Recommendations
I have always used 5’s with a 32g charge
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