The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1922-01-05
SOMETHING ABOUT
SHOTGUN LOADS
You May Be Surprised To Know That
There Are More Than 1850 Loads
For 12 Gusee Guns on Market.

Recently when talking with an Off
cial of oAe of the power companies he
took our break away by telling us that
there wore 4,213 different 12-gauge
shotgun loads on the market a few
years ago, but that his company had
been conducting experiments at enor-
nous expense in an effort to reduce the
number and find which loads are best
suited for different species of game. .
This gentleman told us that at the
present time they are convinced that
63S different 12-guage loads are all
that are necessary to cover all forms Of
shooting. 1t seems impossible that any
| ammunition concern could list in its
catalogue 4-213 different loads in a 12-
guage case. If this number seems ex-
IRENE, as it did to the writer; do a lit
tie figuring yourself
Take the sizes of shot from / to p
and figure the different combination
from "a of All ounce to the maximum
of IL ounces. Then take the powder
load into consideration. Figure from a
minimum of 2 drains up TO the maxi
mum of IL drains. Double this fig
ure to provide for both soft and chilled
shot. Again double it to allow for both
high and low brass shells.
There are eleven different shotgun
powders in general use in America to-
day Multiply the number you now
have by seven and you find that there
are over 10000 possible combinations.
OF course many of these are so freak
ish that they are perhaps never loaded
However, 1t is easy to be seen that if
powder and shot loads were split into
eighths and siXteenths, as many of the
old shooters used to do when they load
ed their shells by hand. the total of
4-2l3 would be greatly increased.
The powder company in question has
shot thousands and thousands of diff
ferent loads and thousands of differ
ent loads until they can give you the
breach pressure and muzzle velocity of
every possible combination and the
striking power of the shot at intervals
of one yard until the pellets are trav-
cling so slow that they will not regis
ter. In this way, they have proved
without question which loads should
give the best results on different spe-
cies of game.
BY carefully studying the table they
have prepared. most shooters are ant
TO receive a severe shock when they
realize that they would have had
much greater success in field shooting
if they had discarded their favorite
duck load long ago. For years the
writer has shot IA drains of bulk
smokeless with l Ia ounces of 1-2
chilled shot. We were greatly sur
prised to learn that if we had dropped
an eighth of an ounce of shot, the pat
tern would have been better and the
penetration greater.
1-21 Ia load which so many duck
shooters swear by does not prove out
in practice. 1t has been learned from
the experiments that Id Is or al
swill produce better results. 1t will be
hard to convince many Of the old wild
fowl shooters that they could have any
degree of success with 8 drains of pow
der and 1 ounce of shot. Nevertheless.
scientific experiments have proved
that the pellet emery at 80, 40 so and so
yards with this load is greater than the
famous duck shooting load of 3 IL
drains of powder and l ia ounces of
shot.