buckshot and chokes
 

whats the best choke to use for 00 buck, i dont know if you can use chokes or just cylinder bore.

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

Modified is typically the choke to use with 00 Buck shot.

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

If i was to get a choke it would either be a kicks buck kicker or a patternmaster. Both throw some amazing patterns

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

Just like sighting in a rifle, you need to try your shotgun with different chokes and different brands buckshot...Anything else is just speculation...

My Browning B-80 does best with Winchester Supreme 3 inch Mag 00 buck out of the Improved Cylinder choke...It will keep 5-7 pellets into a 8 1/2 x 11 sheet (turned horizontal) at 40 yards...

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

For my Mossberg 500 and Remington Wingmaster, 2 3/4" 00 buckshot shot best with a full choke.

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

thanks guys, im not really lookin for good patterns, just good enough to hit a coyote thats too close for the scope on my rifle, so id say 20yds tops, and im usin 3.5in winchesters, so they should provide a good punch at that range.

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

It depends on the gun, ammo, forcing cone, etc, but modied or improved seems to yeild tightest. I have yet to see full work well.

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

AS A RULE, buckshot works best in tubes with little, or no choke at all. The reason for this is that the more choke a barrel has, the more the pellets are deformed when they are "scrunched down" to get thru the choke constriction. Deformed pellets fly much more unpredictably than ones that remain round!

That said, the only way to tell for sure what buckshot will do from your chokeis to shoot some of the loads you intend to use at a patterning target to see for yourself what will happen.

Since you are shooting coyotes, this comment does not apply. BUT, to the best of my knowledge, buckshot is illegal for deer hunting in New York, and many other states as well, and for good reason!! Buckshot is a VERY short-range load at best, and more deer have been wounded with buckshot to die later than with any other kind of deer ammo. It is very ineffective, and inhumane!I lived for several years in a county in Virginia where buckshot was the only ammo alowed, and I witnessed so many horrible failures of this ammo that I refused to continue using it, and only hunted in the Blue Ridge counties where rifles were legal. (Can you tell???, I HATE buckshot!!)

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

Welcome back eldequello!! Your experience has definitely been missed around here!! Always enjoy your posts!

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

I would not say buckshot is ineffective and inhumane. You may have experience as I can see you have been around for quite some time; however, just because you have bad experiences with buckshot doesn't mean that everyone else has as well or ever will. Buckshot serves a purpose with boundaries, and if those boundaries understood then there is not any problem. If your a bad shot that is one boundary (a shotgun isn't a miracle worker), but if you can hold a bead steady without flinching and the range is 25-30 yards then great - it will work...

20 yards on a coyote - it will work well - go for it. Get you a good choke. Patternmaster, Buckkicker or Carlson's Hevi-Shot Dead Coyotoe Choke. Some like Hevi-Shot loads and some don't. I personally do, but again that is my opinion and only valid to me. You will find what works for you.

As far as deer or other game is concerned. If you have the correct load and choke then I don't see a problem with buckshot from 0-30yards. It will work well, but again know your limitations.

I personally like buckshot. BUT I do live in Georgia and we can use it here and have used it for hunting applications for many many many years. I think buckshot in the thickets and briers of Georgia works. I have used a 20gauge Remington 870 for years to kill deer and other game with buckshot without problems or inhumane kills. All of my animals are within 30 yards and I know how my shotgun patterns.

Again to state the original question. Buckshot with a good choke designed for buckshot and Hevi-Shot is what I would use, but any buckshot will work with a good choke...

My3 cents worth................

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

I agree 100%. I was cheap and didn't want to buy a slug gun when I moved to MD. I used 00 on blackwater refuge for sika deer. That stuff had no knockdown power after 30 yards.

I have shot sika wounded with the stuff. And had healed and was full of puss. I won't use it anymore.

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

A Mod choke is your best bet. I use No. 4 Buck for coyotes though. I use it in a full choke and it works well on them out to 50 yards.

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

I have had both Patternmaster and Kick's buck kicker choke tubes and I prefer the Kick's choke tube with 00buck.

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

If you're only going out to ranges of 20 yards you might want to try Centurion Multi-Defense Buckshot. It's basically a ball and buck round, with a .650 round ball sitting on 6 #1 buck. It's kinda like the old pumpkin ball rounds with the added bonus of the buckshot. You should get 40 yard accuracy with this round.

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

Thanks! I've been in the process of moving for the past 45 days or so! I am now back in NY, about 25 miles SE of Syracuse, almost precisely 300 miles north of where I lived in PA.

I went to the DMV today to register my vehicles in NY again. It cost me $334.50 for a 1998 pickup, a 2001 Lincold Town Car, and an NY drivers license. The DMV scam in NY is that they charge you for TWO YEARS' registration, and they keep all the money-even ifyou don't stay two years.

Oh well. Welcome back to NY!!

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

My experience with the use of buckshot on deer was in Virginia, and I am pretty sure I never lived in any other state where it was legal, but maybe I have. I know for sure that everywhere else that I've lived, if rifles were legal,no-one used buckshot instead.

While in VA, I participated in a number of hunts inm which dogs were used, and the hunting parties consisted of as many as 30-40 people. So I did get an opportunity to observe a number of deer that were fired upon by a number of people using the stuff. In one instance, a smallish buckwas shot at by four guys using 12-ga guns from about 40 yards as it ran by them. The little fellow showed no signs of having been hit. That evening, as we were getting ready to leave the hunt area, one of the installation guides (Fort Pickett, Nottoway County VA) came over to our vehicle and asked us "you boys want that little buck you shot earlier? We just found him." Turned out that the little deer (about 90 pounds live weight) had travelled 1.5 miles from where he'd been shot. There were THREE 00 buckshot pellets through his lungs, and one had gone thru his heart. He'd travelleda mile and a halflike that before dying. If a hound had not followed him down into the swamp, we never even would have known that anyone had hit him.

I realize this is just one case. But if he'd been hit in the same spot by even a .243, he would not have gone over 100 yards! I still contend that there's a very good reason why buckshot is not allowed for deer hunting in a great number of jurisdictions...........

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

Might as well give my 2 cents worth. From my experience and just like other people said, trydifferent choke tubes and ammo to find out what your gun likes. As far as buckshot, living here in Virginia in some counties it is all you can use.Being from the midwest and coming to Virginia I thought it was the strangest thing in the world. Now using dogs and buckshot has grown on me.It is effective to a point and the best option when shooting at deer in the cutover that are hauling freight.

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

thats new york for ya!

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

I've had the same experience and don't really like buckshot. There however, are some times where it's more practical like stated above when they are running through a cut over or something. You usually don't have time to get them in the scope and shoot on a rifle. Shotguns come in handy in situations like that. I've seen several deer having been shot by several different people with buckshot and keep going or be shot by several people before he finally died.

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

I always had better patterns with #1 buck from a full choke.Have folded deer on the full run at 60 yards.Mod may be better for the larger double ought................Harold

RE: buckshot and chokes
 

Yes, there are counties in VA in which buckshot is the only permitted deer ammo. I have hunted in some of them, and I
came to the conclusion that the local "good ol' boys" kept the law that way in oirder to limit the hunting opportunities of those who did not belong to their hunting clubs, those of us that had no packs of hounds with which to chase the deer! The reason I think this is because the topographyof those places was sufficiently hilly to permit the safe use of high-powered rifles, at least from tree stands!

In addition, the deer in these counties have become so adept at avoiding hounds, after 200 years of doing so, a human on foot has no chance at all when trying to stalk or still-hunt them!