Originally Posted by Strut&Rut

JW -

What's the effective killing range of your combo? Did you harvest any of those birds past 40 yards?

My son and I tested multiple loads out of his Weatherby SA-20. The Hevi-shot Triple Beard gave us the densest pattern at 40 yards. However, we both misjudged the distance this Spring and he rolled a big strutter at 46 steps - the bird went down hard, and I thought he had finally notched his first tag, but there wasn't enough power and he lost the bird.

I think that the Triple Beard density at 40 yds was mostly 7 shot, which couldn't get the job done on a big ole' Tom. Using hindsight I'm kicking myself, because his gun-coke combo had a slightly weaker pattern with Win XX Magnum #5 but likely has more effective killing power due to the larger shot (straight 5 vs TB).

We knew that under 40 yds was the ideal range, but losing a bird because you misjudge 10 yards is tough to swallow. It also doesn't leaves any room for error in judging distance when hunting inside the timber - simple shadows on the ground can make judging 5 yd increments challenging...