Well, now for a shot of reality. I'm not trying to bash you and i commend you for posting your target as most people who make claims such as yours never do.

Here we have a 40 yard target shot with #6. In your first post you claim you are only counting vital hits. A vital hit is a pellet penetrating the brain/skull and the vertebrae from about mid neck up. When your first test firings yielded 13 and 18 hits in the "vitals" i couldn't understand why you were disappointed. After seeing your target and what you refer to as vital hits, i see why.

First off, a birds wattle is not a vital area. Second, don't be so quick to count those #6 hits in the spine when you start plunging below the feather line expecially out to 40 yards. Honestly fella, i only cont 6 LETHAL hits to the VITALS.

Not trying to let the air out of your sail here, i don't think i could if i tried, but for heaven's sake your conting hits to the beak and snood and on into the neck where there is no vital. I will tell ya, some of those hits your conting in the lower spine and neck won't even penetrate through the birds feathers out to 40 yds. And in case you didn't know this, the beak, snood, and wattles are not VITALS for god's sake. Would you kill somebody if you pierced their lips and ears repeatedly?? I hope not, cause i have seen some teenagers walking around that should be corpses by now.

I see this every year about this time. Guys caiming they put 30 and 40 hits in the vitals out to 40 yards with their guns and i ask every time to post a target like you did so that i may see what they are counting. In a case like yours, your better off saying you got 6 hits to the vitals. I know your not going to agree with me, but it is the truth even if nobody else will tell ya.

VITALS man, it's all in the VITALS. Familiarize yourself with the anatomy of the bird and you will see your error.