I have a cousin who claims 60 yards he has one old side by side that apparently is a bucks shot super gun , it is probably also a particular load.

loads can have such a big difference

I have a carlsons BSC buck shot choke in my 500 the guy at carlsons said it used the same geometry as their normal extended full , it was just ported
it sends shot very nice hardly ever put anything else on that gun.


the buck I tried last year seemed to be good with it , that was the fiocchi 00 , you never got all the pellets on at 50 yards but there were always 2-3 very close to point of aim

I used to use #4 buck years ago for geese. With factory full choke and 30 inch barrel. Killed geese a long ways out.

#4buck is my preferred load for calling coyotes in the thick stuff. #1 buck is a close second. 00 wasn't ever good for much in my eyes

I think the primary purpose of 00 at this day and age is people because it gives the penetration to get to the FBI standard,

in the past when you could put together enough people to do a drive and put them 50 yards apart no shot was going to be much over 30 yards and any of the buck shots would be very effective.

we didn't even have coyotes until the late 80s early 90s in southern WI
my grandpa use to hunt a lot of fox in the 50s and early 60s not sure what he used for shot , I know he used a 12ga it was the only gun he had.

My dad used to hunt fox in Ohio with #4 common shot.

My brother shot a lot of fox and few coyotes 30 years ago with #2 lead in a .20ga. 3".

I have used buckshot for hunting big game for a few decades. In most of my shotguns, #4 buck and #1 buck pattern well with a modified choke, while 00 patters best with a full choke. I shoot only2 3/4" shells. I have not found any benefit to the longer shells.

The flight control buckshot has proved to be an advantage over regular shells in my 18" cyl bore guns. In my barrels with chokes the budget shells work fine. I like Winchester and Fiocci the best, but I've used other rands successfully as well.

#2 lead is really hard to find in 2023

closest thing is probably the Hornady coyote nickel plated lead BB or lead #4 everything I see for #2 or #3 is steel.

I will see if I can find 0buck or #1 buck maybe try the BB

I knew there were no factory loads for it. Is it not available for reloading either? I assume all sizes of it is or was hard to find. I have some old stock #2 in 12ga.

The deer I killed at 75 yards was hit in the head. It was running flat out across a cut cornfield. I missed it a few times and could see corn sucks flying because I was not leading the running deer. On my last attempt, I shot about a body length in front of it, and the deer cartwheeled, stone dead.

Inside of 40 yards, it is not uncommon for some 00 and 000 buckshot to completely pass through a deer. Many pellets are caught in the hide on the offside as well.

I haven't shot a shotgun at a deer in about 30 years now. I no longer participate in hound hunts.

hound hunts sound like they would be a blast , in WI we have to take turns being the dogs gets harder to find the land and people all the time.
probably similar issues with hound hunts.

Anyone with a reloading press can come up with some pretty gnarly buckshot rounds for the cost of the buckshot, which tends to go pretty far. Same hulls, powder, primers and wads as normal trap loads. BPI sells a couple versions of #0 buckshot, which runs 0.315 vs. the normal 0.330 of #00 buckshot. With the #0 version, 9 pellet load that weigh just shy of 1 oz will stack 3 x 3 in most wads sized for a 1 1/8 oz trap load, and when placed over something like 20 grains of Green Dot, will exit the barrel at around 1,350 fps. You would not want to be standing in front of it when it goes off.

The 0.330 version of #00 buckshot will not stack in 3's inside any 12 gauge shot cup. It will stack in 2's, so 8 of them (1 oz) will stack fine, but you will have to find a modern era 1 1/4 oz wad to contain them, or else allow the top 2 to stand proud of the shot cup. You can do that if you have some wads for older style hulls with high internal base.

Point being if you have a shot shell press and want to have access to an abundant and economical supply of potent buckshot rounds, get yourself some #0 buckshot and go to work.

I may need to do that, my dad has a Mec I can buy off him we used to make trap loads when it made sense to do so and we were shooting league.

I don't have a ton of use for buck shot but have been playing with it a little lately mostly to better understand it.

most everything I do with shotguns on game is #4, #5 or #6 on birds and rabbits If I find a good supply of #5 which is sometimes harder to find I would probably just buy a bunch of that and split the difference on 4 and 6
had a case of 5 in my cart the other day and fell a sleep and the sale ended and price jumped back up

7.5 or 8 on clay just buy cases of trap loads now

slugs on deer always used to buy the 15 packs of Winchester shortly after deer season ,but with the state going rifle and the shortages I mostly just see 5 round boxes so I grab a couple here and there to keep stocked up when I see them at farm and fleet.

If you are gearing up for yotes, I have some experience. There have been lots of yotes killed with Federals 3" copper plated BB's. If I was prepping for fifty yards or less that's what I'd want. A lot of times they killed yotes further than that. I don't know if you can find them anymore though. If I seen a case of them today I'd buy them all. #4 Buck is pretty good. We had a lot better luck with T and F shot. Shoot 100 yotes with those loads and you will find that the BB's roll them end over end and that when you have #4 buck in they don't roll but leave a good blood trail, get about 100 more yards, and may be winking at you when you get there. I had some custom F shot that the hull had a rolled crimp holding a piece of cardboard in the end to keep everything from rolling out. I don't know what it was about those but my shotgun really liked them.

I got to where I was loading up staggered. First three shots or so were 3" BB. Next couple few those 3" F's. Next couple few 3.5" #4 buck. If there was a far first shot I needed I had time to chuck in a heavier load in the chamber and since they are far you can get away with the noise.

The old timers I hunted with killed thousands of yotes and fox over the years with their old Magnum Browning Belgium A5 whale back at 3" copper plated BB.

I think they roll from the BB b/c the circle of shot smacks into them and has more surface area when they get smacked. I'm sure there's a smart word for that. Like in your picture when the half a dozen #4 for hit they don't roll but get deep and get pretty leaky.

I'm sure I have some of the above somewhere if you want to try to re create them.

If your pattern seems goofy try a bigger choke. I settled on an extended Carlson choke and also had an extended mag tube for the assortment listed above.

Pete, Hound hunting is not all fun and games. Deer run for many miles, crossing boundaries, highways, and rivers. After many hunts, some of the dogs spend several days in the woods until they either came back to where they were released, or homeowners find them with their dogs. Dog owners would get calls at night to learn that someone had their dog in their backyard. Today, electronic dog collars make tracking a wayward dog much easier. If the day of the hunt is windy, the stand hunters could not hear the hounds and stay hopelessly at their assigned stand hoping a deer might come by.

To hunt small plots, a beagle mix was often used. They would often chase a deer for about a mile then come back when called. Not so with larger hounds.

Most hound hunting now is on very large tracts of land. It is losing its popularity among younger hunters, as the older generation passes on and property is divided or sold. It is increasingly harder to obtain control of contiguous tracts of land. Someone will always pay more to lease land on small farms.

thanks for the info

Hornady makes a nickel plated 3 inch heavy coyote https://www.hornady.com/ammunition/shotgun/12-ga-heavy-magnum-reg-coyote-bb-3#!/

I will see if I can find some to try

I am running Carlson's extended chokes and a mag tube

I used to carry a 12 gauge and my .223 when hunting fox, I had trouble with 4 buck, I had better results with 0 buck, or 00 buckshot