552 
FOREST AND STREAM 
December, 1921 
fourths or seven-eighths of an ounce of 
No. 2 or No. 4 shot makes a pattern at 
40 yards that looks much like an essay 
on silence ; that is, principally blank 
paper. As a friend once remarked, “You 
must shoot two loads to get one pat- 
tern.” However, the 20-gauge is no joke 
when loaded with 2 54 drams of “E. C.” 
and 54 of an ounce of 6’s, 7’s or 754’s. 
You have good velocity and fairly close 
patterns, well bunched in the center, as 
are most 20-gauge patterns, and they 
can be put on birds so quickly with a 6 
or 654-pound gun that the shooter usu- 
ally kills or misses his game before the 
user of a heavier 12-gauge gun can aim 
and shoot. At 15 to 30 yards such a 
load makes clean kills without reducing 
the game to hamburger, and from 10 
to 30 yards is the distance at which the 
vast proportion of upland small game is 
killed. This refers particularly to cot- 
ton-tail rabbits, quail, woodcock and 
ruffed grouse. For every 75-yard kill 
that is made on quail, a dozen shots will 
be missed in brush or briar patches at 
5 to 15 yards, and so we can conclude 
that the 20 shoots hard enough and close 
enough to get the average or even the 
average long shot in field shooting. 
Not everyone who uses a 20-gauge 
sticks to field shooting or light loads, and 
the question of what can be secured with 
a 20 when it is loaded with different 
charges is valuable information. It is 
interesting also to know how the differ- 
ent 20-gauge loads compare in velocity, 
pattern and penetration with the 12- 
gauge loads. 
T HE following table, prepared by a 
leading shell concern, gives the aver- 
age results over a long period of time 
that they have secured with Hercules 
E. C. Powder in factory-loaded shells 
at a range of 40 yards. Cut it out for 
future reference and compare it with 
the 12-gauge table in the forepart of this 
series of articles : 
20-Gauge Velocity Table 
Shot Size, 
Soft or 
2 Drs. 
2 'A Drs. 
2 $4 Drs. 
Chilled 
Va Oz. 
M Oz. 
Vi Oz. 
2 
951 
991 
971 
3 
933 
973 
953 
4 
913 
953 
933 
5 
895 
935 
915 
6 
877 
917 
897 
7 
858 
898 
. 878 
7)4 
848 
888 
868 
8 
839 
879 
859 
10 
802 
842 
822 
By looking at the table we see that a 
charge of 2 drams of E. C. and 54 of an 
ounce of 754 shot develops a velocity of 
848 foot-seconds. By looking back at 
our 12-gauge velocity table, we find that 
a 3 dram 1)4 oz. load of 754 hustles 
along at the rate of 872 foot-seconds. 
One of 3 drams 1 oz. develops 891 foot- 
seconds, and even a charge of 3 drams 
154 oz. goes down the range for 851 
foot-seconds. In other words, every 12- 
gauge charge on the list above 254 
drams will outshoot this 20-gauge load 
for velocity. 
Suppose we take the heaviest factory 
20-gauge load of 254 drams, 54 oz. in 
low-brass shells and use No. 754 shot for 
comparison. This charge develops 868 
foot-seconds over 40 yards against 872 
foot-seconds for the very moderate 3- 
dram \% oz. 12-gauge load; 911 for 3)4 
1%; or 951 for the heavy 354 154 with 
7y 2 ’s. With 6’s, the 20 gives us 897 foot- 
seconds with 2 54-54 oz. against 899 foot- 
seconds with 3 drams 154 oz. ; 939 for 
3/4 I 54 1 and 979 for 3 )4 154 in the 12. 
If we select the 254 54. 20-gauge load, 
the maximum high velocity factory load 
in low-base shells, we get 917 foot-sec- 
onds with 6’s. In the 12, we can equal 
it with the 3 dram 1 oz. load, usually 
considered a good one for boys. This 
Half choke 54 oz. no. 6 shot at 35 yards 
gives us 919 foot-seconds velocity: We 
can do just a little worse with 899 foot- 
seconds with the 3 dram 1)4 oz. load or 
much better with 354 and which de- 
velops 939 foot-seconds. The old duck 
load of 3j4- 154 develops 979 foot-sec- 
onds, which is 62 foot-seconds more, or 
a difference of 6 per cent, in velocity in 
favor of the 12-gauge. This is not 
enough to be worth worrying about, but 
it still shows clearly which load gives 
the better velocity. In addition the 12 
has an advantage of exactly 50 per cent, 
in pattern when using the same size 
shot, considering 1% ounces as a load 
for the 12-gauge and 54 of an ounce as 
Half Choke 54 oz. No. 6 shot at 25 yards 
the load for the 20-gauge, as they are 
the commonly used high-velocity loads 
in factory charges. 
On paper the 154 ounce 12-gauge load 
has an advantage of 50 per cent, in pat- 
tern over the 54 oz. charge in the 20. 
The 154 oz, 12-gauge charge has a 43 
per cent, advantage over the 54 oz. heavy 
load in the small gun, using full choke 
bores in both cases. The 12 has a still 
greater advantage in patterning qualities 
because it is about as difficult to secure a 
65 per cent, pattern with the 20 as a 75 
per cent, spread in the 12. Some of us 
are inclined to think that one gauge 
shoots about as closely as the other. In 
percentages this is practically true, but 
we must not forget that a 12-gauge 
weapon shooting 60 per cent, patterns 
with I54 ounces of shot will put just as 
many pellets of any size in a 30-inch cir- 
cle at 40 yards as a 20-gauge would if it 
could be bored to place 100 per cent, of 
54 of an ounce of shot in its pattern. 
This explains why a good many million 
hunters will keep right on shooting the 
12 in the field in spite of the disadvan- 
tages of weight, because it puts on pat- 
terns that are close enough and can be 
made big enough to allow some of us 
dub shots to occasionally hit something 
when snap shooting. 
O N account of the limitations of pat- 
terning of the 20, it is not advisable 
to modify the bore to any considerable 
extent or else holes will appear in the 
pattern that are large enough to allow 
small game to be missed on perfectly 
held shots. The pattern of a cylinder- 
bored 20 looks like the enforcement of 
the Volstead Act, in that there is a large 
amount of space that is totally innocent 
of results. 
There yet remains the matter of pen- 
etration. Obviously the load that de- 
velops the highest velocity will show the 
greatest penetration in objects that are 
easily penetrated and up to certain lim- 
its. We cannot, however, prove that be- 
cause a load delivers 10 per cent, higher 
velocity than another that it will show 
an equal advantage in penetration, or 
that it might not show a greater advan- 
tage in penetration in the flesh of game, 
in paper, wood or any other medium of 
comparison. It is a little like the Irish- 
man’s mule. You’ve got to ride the brute 
to see how it will act. 
The following penetration table was 
supplied by a leading gun house for E. C. 
in both 12- and 20-gauges: 
Comparative Penetration 
in Soft Pine at 40 
Yards. 
Gauge 
Load 
4 
Size of Shot 
6 754 
12 
3)4-1 54 
0.56" 
0.50" 
0.44' 
20 
2)4- 54 
0.50" 
0.37" 
0.25' 
As will be noticed, the 12-gauge out- 
shoots the 20 with 4’s, 6’s and 754’s. 
The advantage is 12 per cent, in the case 
of 4’s and a much higher percentage in 
the case of smaller shot. The 12 is 
loaded with 154 ounces of shot and 354 
drams of powder — a load that was obvi- 
ously not designed to give great pene- 
tration. 
The ballistic figures prove that the 12- 
gauge is superior to the 20 in pattern, 
penetration and velocity in standard fac- 
tory guns and loads with every size of 
shot. This concerns about 99.9 per cent, 
of our shooters. The remainder may use 
( Continued on page 567) 
