I used them last night with the wind blowing and about 25 degrees from the 16, they did good.

 

7/8 oz at 1330fps.. back to the 27.. Destroys the targets .038 to .044 choke.. If you do your part.. Great for 1st and 2nd shots on doubles too.. Keep your speed up..and crush the targets..

 

Sure there is a place for 8 1/2 shot. In the summertime several people I shoot with, myself included will switch to 8 1/2 shot in 7/8 oz. loads for singles.

 

I load 7/8 oz 8.5 running about 1250 for all sorts of shooting. Titewad is an excellant powder for this type of load.

ec90t

 

Absolutely, mine are #9s and 16 yard birds appear to hit a glass wall.....Bob Dodd

 

Federal Gold Medal 1oz 8 1/2's....I shot a bunch of good doubles and singles scores with them....

 

You bet! IMO the best load for 16's. Several 100 straight with them and that's saying something for me.

 

A superb load for singles, even at 1150fps. Just make sure your chokes handle it well. Not all do.

 

8.5's & 1oz on the 16, that's all I use, all year long. IM choke in my Ljutic turns targets to dust.

 

I use 8 1/2's with 7/8 oz loads. Seems to work OK and recoil is very light.

Don

 

8 1/2's are great warm weather loads but will only dust targets in below o weather here in Minnesota. I personally use a 3 dram load of 7 1/2's when the Tundra is frozen...Use the 8 1/2's down South or in warm climes and you will love them. lol Dale

 

8 1/2's will surprise you. Even when you move back. I seem to do better with them than I do with 8's in my 20. It seems to like 8 1/2's and 7 1/2's.

 

One of my best scores at the Grand American came from shooting factory AA 1 1/8oz, 8 1/2's. Only place I can find that load is at the Grand, will have to stock up on a few flats this year.

 

There is the same difference between 8 and 8.5 shot as there is between 7.5 and 8 shot. Bags of some brands of shot and shells from some manufacturers that are labeled #8 shot contain shot that can range from 7.5 to 8.5.

Seeing the target well and keeping your head down is very important. Shot size is of little importance. But, we often emphasize the minor points and omit the major points.

sshotshell- My direct answer to your question is that perhaps the top 20 shooters in the country could tell a slight difference between 8 and 8.5 shot from the 16, but the rest of us would never know the difference.


Pat Ireland

 

For the 12 not much difference. When you start dropping down in gauge you notice that some guns and chokes prefer some shot sizes over others. Even more noticeable when shooting long range sporting clays shots and open choked short range shots in skeet and sporting clays. More than once with my 20 I have gone from several misses in a row to several hits in a row by doing nothing but changing shot size on long range shots. I have seen the same thing with the 20 with skeet chokes. A couple of misses do to a thin pattern with 7 1/2 shot go to 25 straights with the same choke and no. 9's.

 

Back when I was in the Air force, I shot both trap and skeet a lot. I did not like changing loads a lot and loaded 8-1/2s for all my 16 yd. trap loads as well as my skeet loads in the 12/20/28 ga. They worked fine for all of it and the targets never knew the difference. One day I was at a trap shoot and grabbed 4 boxes of shells. I broke a 95(including one 25 straight) from the 22 yd. line(my yardage at that time) and omly discovered I had been shooting my 8-1/2 loads after I was done.

 

Shotgun Sports' Frank Kodl won the Clay Target Championship with one ounce of 8 1'2's in Remington shells about a generation ago, with a Ljutic and about 0.028 choke, I was told.

I don't see any point at all in speeding them up above 1200 - why not just shoot light 8's if you are going to do that?

Neil

 

Shooting trap at 16 yards with a 12 gauge and a full choke I doubt that it does make any difference what shot size you use. Any of them will smash a target. 8 1/2's are an excellent choice for someone wanting 1 shot size for trap and skeet.

 

I enjoy using them and hanging smoke. I've used them in some pretty strong head winds and have broken 100's. Also have a couple 25's with a 410 using these.

 

8 1/2 shot in 1oz and 7/8 oz loads work fine at the 16 yard line. I've shot them further back with good results. I'd probably feel better with something larger for handicap, but the few times I tried them at longer yardages, a miss wasn't because of the shot size. I like my targets finely ground or smoked, and the 8 1/2 shot does the trick for 16s.

 

7.5 only

here fishy fishy fishy,

I have had fair luck with 8.5's from the 16 and first shot of doubles, but I only have fair luck with any load.

Rick

 

Neil, when I use to shoot with Kodl and Bob Lamond, I seemed to remember that Frank shot Federal Paper 8 1/2s. I shoot 8 1/2s year around for singles and have done well with them. At the last Grand, I shot 4-100 straights which included 200 in the clay target championships with 8 1/2s. They work well for me. Dex

 

We call them 8`s over here in the UK and near enough 50% of shooters use these at all ranges and beyond 46 yards never mind 16. They break everything at any angle at least as well as 7.5`s, (which are US 8`s). In fact we only drop down to 7.5`s for so called hard to break targets such as rabbits. I have managed to convince myself that even then there is no tangible difference unless the rabbit is edge on and lets be honest that target is hard to break period.

The only time I have noticed a visual difference in breaks is when shooting very large (by our standards) shot such as 2.4mm 7`s. Close targets smoke just fine but less so at distance compared to much smaller shot. This is why almost nobody shoots shells bigger than US 8`s, including George, Richard, etc.

 

9 shot from every yardage that all you ever need~

 

See the target, shoot the target. Great advise and no I didn't come up with it.