Speed Killsby Bill HanusA new generation of shotshells has come to the marketplace which promises big benefits for birdgunners.  Bill Hanus At almost the same time, interest in a new shooting sport -- Sporting Clays -- began to grow. Since ammunition used in sporting clays is not restricted to 1200 FPS velocities as it is in Skeet and Trap, it didn’t take long before the high-speed technology that worked for steel shot was applied to Field and Target loads. Faster velocities have two important benefits for bird hunters: FIRST -- Higher FPS numbers extend the effective distances by maybe five or ten yards, which means you can not only reach out further, but you can utilize smaller shot sizes. Yes, you can shoot 35-yard pheasants and desert quail with No. 8’s when they leave your IC barrel at 1325 FPS! Once, when Mike Dotson was the distributor for B&P, he was asked by Bob Brister, the author of SHOTGUNNING - The Art and the Science, for help with a particularly difficult 60-yard (as measured by a friend’s golf pin range finder) sporting clays target. The result was a 12 gauge, one ounce load of buffered, very hard and very round nickel-plated No. 7-1/2’s with a 1450 FPS velocity. Brister's first order was for three cases. 60 Yards! SECONDLY -- Higher speeds cut you some slack on your leads. Yep, you can fudge your leads and get away with more often. When you are shooting shotshells 1300 to 1500 FPS velocities, you are shooting stuff that's 10% to 25% faster that regular field loads. It helps the hunter who is a nanosecond or two late in getting off the mark and it’s a win-win situation for pass shooters, like dove hunters. Instead of having to worry about leading "about the length of a school bus" -- and he leads it a SUV instead -- he still scores. Higher velocities put the shot string out there farther and quicker, which improve the odds on connecting. Who’s who in the speedy ammunition business today Superior components, consistent ballistics, plated or buffered high antimony shot are the principle ingredients that go into fast, long range shotshells. Baschieri & Pellegri --lots of 16 gauge bird hunters consider this to be among their top field loads Federal Cartridge -- offers high speed loads in several of the product lines in their Premium® Wing•Shok™ brand, including Magnum, High Velocity - Pheasants Forever, High Velocity and High Brass, shown here by load number: Fiocchi Ammunition -- their Golden Pheasant line offers: Fiocchi's High Velocity line includes: Kent Cartridge -- manufactures both a non-toxic IMPACT™ plus ULTIMATE UPLAND® and VELOCITY® lead loads that offer high velocity choices: Lyalvale -- a top British maker with a wide variety of high speed ammunition in all gauges. Lyalvale has a new US distributor -- intaSport. Remington Arms -- as you would expect, Remington concentrates most of their high velocity offerings in their Express® High-Velocity Extra Long Range and Extra Long Range loads: Winchester Ammunition -- many of Winchester's high velocity loads are in their SuperSport™ AA® Sporting Clays line, which offers a good selection of smaller shot sizes in Winchester’s new HP (High Performance) hull: Winchester's popular Super-X® liner includes: Think of high velocity shotshells as a sort of insurance policy -- to get a few more yards of reach . . . or compensate for a slow start on a flush . . . or to take and make that once in a lifetime pass shot. Big help in an itsy bitsy package. |
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