Choosing the Size of Shot 
An Important Consideration for the Smooth Bore Man 
(O)enities the size of shot for 
any purpose seems like a sim- 
ple proposition. It is, if you 
never use more than one load, if all 
your shooting is trapshooting, or if 
most of your hunting is for one variety 
of game. But choosing the shot for a 
variety of shooting is like choosing an 
Easter hat. Some people try every- 
thing in the place and are still unde- 
cided. In addition, there 
is no accounting for tastes 
and ideas. Even today 
there are people who insist 
that derby hats, including 
brown derbies, are becom- 
ing. Nevertheless, there 
is usually a definite rea- 
son why certain things are 
preferred for certain pur- 
poses. There is a reason 
why certain shot sizes are 
better for some shooting 
than for others. 
Block shooting, 2. e.; 
shooting at wooden blocks 
with a shotgun, has been 
a common winter sport in 
many country districts in 
the East for nearly a hun- 
dred years. It is nothing 
but the old rifle shoot for 
turkeys and chickens, ex- 
cept that shotguns are 
used, because they are 
more common in those 
neighborhoods. 

© 


(pete sportsmen still 
shoot at wooden blocks 
4 to 6 inches square, each 
of which contains a fine 
X or knife cut, the inter- 
section of the cross-lines 
of which designates the 
exact spot to be hit. The 
blocks are fired on at 20 
or 25 yards, and the neo- 
phyte would naturally 
expect that, with our mod- 
ern fuill-choke shotguns, finding the 
center of the X after a load of shot had 
hit it would be as easy as counting 
the spots on the back of a beetle after 
an elephant had stepped on it. 
But it didn’t take the average turkey- 
match shooter very long to discover 
that hitting the center of the X and 
putting two dozen shot in the block 
are two entirely different proportions, 
as different as investing a thousand 
dollars in Wall Street and investing 
© © © © © © © © © © 

Cc. S. LANDIS 
that thousand in a stock that immedi- 
ately thereafter advances ten points. 
Most shooters reasoned that if the 
average gun and load would place fifty 
shot in the block its owner would have 
a very good chance to vary his usual 
diet of ham, bacon and sausage. And 
if it put twice that many pellets on 
the board he had just twice as good a 
chance to bring home a turkey. 


Chilled 

Drop 

Diam- 
care in regulating the choke so that 
extra evenness of pattern resulted, all 
helped. But not one of them could hold 
a candle to the plan of reducing the 
size of the shot. Whenever a man could 
slip in a couple of loads of 9’s, 10’s or 
12’s, when everyone else was shooting 
8’s, 7’s or 6’s, old John Probability 
reached out and grabbed him by the 
hand and fairly yanked him over to- 
ward the turkey coops. 
After some bright indi- 
vidual had demonstrated 
the value of fine shot and 



Shot Shot Diam. eter in : eA 
No. No. in Milli- light loads by winning 
in Oz. in Oz. Inches meters nearly everything ata 
Dust 4565 04 1.02 couple of matches, the re- 
2385 
11 1380 
868 
2326 
1346 
848 
05 
.06 
07 
1.27 
1.52 
1.78 


sult was the printing of a 
set of handbills reading 
something like this: 
BIG 
TURKEY SHOOT! 
A block shoot for tur- 
keys will be held at Jones’ 






9 585 568 .O8 2.03 Corner, Saturday, Janu- 
aTyvaLlD. 
8 409 399 09 2.28 Nothing smaller than 
No. 8 shot may be used. 
73 345 338 094 2 AT Each contestant will be 
supplied with factory-load- 
f; 999 991 10 9.54 ed shells containing not 
over 14 ounces of shot. 
6 AP 2oS RNa ss <1 een JOHN SMITH. 
5 172 168 12 3 02 HE reason for such 
regulations is evident 
to anyone who will study 
4 136 132 13 3.30 a table of American 
standard- shot sizes like 
3 109 106 14 3.53 the one illustrated in this 
article. 
2 88 86 15 3.78 In one ounce of 8’s 
there are 399, or roughly, 
1 73 71 16 4.06 Vé 400 shot; in one ounce of 
9’s, 568—40% more; in an 
a ounce of 10’s, 848—more 
TABLE OF SHOT SIZES 
Various and clever were the many 
devices that were provided to give each 
25-cent chance a dollar’s worth of 
winning opportunity. There were any 
number of ways to help beat the usual 
proportion of one compared to the total 
number of chances; usually by invok- 
ing the help of the law of averages. 
Special choke -boring, long barrels, 
light powder charges, slow powders, 
special wadding, tallowed loads, exces- 
sively large shot charges, and extra 
than twice as many; in 
an ounce of. 12’s, 2,326, or 
6 times as many. In dust 
shot there are 4,565, or 11 times as 
many. 
ET a man shoot two shots with 12’s 
to two for each of the others who 
shot 8’s and theoretically he had 12 
chances to their two. Almost as many 
as Bill Bryan tried to give us in those 
dear old days where a lot of people 
expected to get the world for nothing. 
Now it is comparatively easy to tell 
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