I appreciate all the feedback and love hearing from other hunters expierience. This season personally I have taken 3 birds and called in 3 others. the two farthest where not shot by me but I witnessed the kills. I am not condoning this distance but the farthest two verified by a rangefinder where 65-75 yards With str8 #5 hevi shot. I still struggle to believe #7s are going to provide the KE at those distances. I think of it this way and my percentages are purely for example purposes. I'm not condoning the longer ranges but feel the larger shot still possess plenty of pellets at closer range say 40 yards that awesome to put 500 pellets in the head but 50 pellets of #5 has the same result where I personally feel the larger shot sepeartes itself is at longer ranges.
Again if your goal is 40-50 yards 5s and 7s both work identically well but for those times I misjudge the yardage I think you have a much higher percentage of taking the bird with a full compliment of larger shot. I provided an example of percent of killing the bird below this is in no way scientfic but just gives and example I am a believer in Hevi shot but it is what it is 10% denser than lead you can't tell me #7s went from a 35 yard load to 55 just by using a 10% denser material.
30 yards / %kills
Hevi #5/ 100%
Hevi #7/ 100%
Lead loads/ 100%
40 yards
Hevi #5/ 100%
Hevi #7/ 100%
Lead/ 95%
50 yards
Hevi #5 100%
Hevi #7 95%
Lead 75%
60 Yards
Hevi #5 75%
Hevi #7 50%
Lead 40%
70 Yards
Hevi #5 50%
Hevi #7 10%
Lead 5%