Duck hunters - please evaluate my pattern

I know we have some serious duck hunters on here and I'd appreciate any feedback on this pattern. It's a tss #8 load with one ounce of shot, so there are 250 shot in the shell. That's more than a 1.25 oz load of #4 steel, and these should penetrate like #3 lead. Velocity is 1335.

I am not a duck hunter, but I am going on a hunt in OK in December. These are gonna cost about $65 a box, but they recoil less than a dove load, and that's important for a guy with my back issues.

I shot this pattern with an IC choke. It put 85% inside the 30" circle, with a 70/30 spread that I like for wing shooting. It obviously is denser on the left, but I think that will just be a shell to shell variation. I think it's still too tight of a pattern, and I probably need to try a skeet choke.

Thanks for any comments.

Gonna be a lot of dead ducks in your future. That load through a full choke would be an awesome cripple killer load. I imagine you are going to pull the trigger a time or 2 and have your limit pretty regular too. A wad of 30 teal buzz the decoys and you shoot 3 times and have a truck load of ducks.

Should work well, but that's gonna be a ton of money in shells if the birds are there. Consider a low brass steel target load if kick is an issue. I've killed a ton of birds with them, 30yds and in it kills the snot out of them.

what distance was that pattern?

Dr. B

40 yds. Thanks for all the comments. I realize it's not very cost effective, but I've never been on a decent, legal, duck hunt in my life. It's a 3 day hunt and the $200 on shells is not a significant amount of the total cost of the hunt. Plus, I've always wanted to see how tss would perform on ducks. We are supposed to be primarily hunting mallards, so I won't be able to kill very many in a best case scenario.

The only times I've ever killed many ducks was back in HS when there were several of us that shot wood ducks coming to roost. I don't think we ever killed one before sunset, so they were all illegal. I've been on a few duck hunts as a guest, using the decoys and all that. Don't think we have ever gotten more than 2 or 3; seems like I've always caught bad weather or something has gone wrong.

I was planning to buy a box or 2 of steel loads too, but with my luck all the ducks will leave OK the day before we arrive.

In my opinion, you're right. That pattern is too tight.

I'd try your skeet choke

Maybe try about half the distance to see where it's hitting close range, too. My poor self has missed more ducks within 15 yards with a modified choke than I care to remember

That's pretty tight at 40 yards. If it looked like that 25-30 of day your in the money but that pattern will be super small at 20 yards. After all, that's where you want your ducks.

If you're hunting divers on open water it's a great pattern or puddlers in fields. If you are in timber that's tight, so it really depends on where you are hunting.
Has the guide or buddies mentioned what type habitat?

It really varies at times too, I always take an IC, MR and LR choke when hunting in AR.

When we hunted Green Bay most of the divers were between 15-25 yards. We used 7.5 HS loads. Here divers will be 35-50 yards shots. You will like that TSS I bet, I shoot E-Shot some and it is deadly. Can't afford TSS for ducks, the again, some years I might shoot a case or so.

Enjoy your trip and y'all wear'em out!

Thanks for the additional comments. I really don't know what to expect as far as the terrain, but having turkey hunted in the area I don't think there can be many trees.

After thinking about it more, I'm pretty sure that the guy that came up with the tss name and first started selling it recommended cylinder bore. I think I will try that next. Even at 40 yds, that pattern would destroy the duck if I could hit him with the dense part. At 20 yards, it would just be feathers.

It's a combo quail hunt so I guess I will be carrying extra chokes in my pocket anyway.

As others have said, I'd want it a little bit more open for decoying birds. My guess is that you make take some 40 yd shots at some exiting birds, but your first and second shot will be much less than that.

Sounds like a fun trip. Oklahoma is a gem for waterfowling.

PCP DON'T DO IT!!!! It will get in your blood in a hurry

If back issues are whats pushing you to throw tss at ducks I'd leave that SBE at home and carry a 20ga with #4 steel shot and a Light Mod choke and a Full choke. Those two chokes and 3's or 4's out of a 20ga will kill any duck you should be shooting at. Plus it'll be a lot easier toting on the quail part of the hunt. Won't be much duck left to eat if they get centered up by a tss load. Next to a pump you're toting one of the worst guns to carry for a guy looking to ease back on recoil.

I know very little about reloading TSS but have reloaded lots of steel. That pattern is too tight. You might be able to open it up with a different choke but I would try another recipe.

Thanks for all the additional comments, but I've already got most of the shells loaded. I was using shot I already had and ran out. More shot should be here tomorrow and I will load the last box then. I was gonna try another shot with a cylinder choke, but it was just too hot to fool with it today. I've shot enough tss to be confident that the pattern will open up with no choke.

My SBE 1 has a 24" barrel and only weighs a shade over 7 lbs, so I can carry it ok. I just didn't wanna shoot 3.5" waterfowl loads through it. I usually hunt with a sxs, 12 or 20 depending on what and where I'm hunting. But we are flying on this trip and I'm limited to carrying one gun, so the SBE is the most versatile shotgun I've got. And considering the cost of the hunt, I wanted 3 shots at everything.

I've been shooting clays with it and I hit better with this gun than anything else I've got it. Unlike a good sxs, it has no soul. .

I'll post a pic of the cylinder pattern whenever I shoot it.

As I said, I've done very little genuine duck hunting, but I've watched a lot on TV. I wanna be the guy that drops that last duck after everyone else has given up.

Gonna be 5 of us in the blind - do I wanna try to get on the end or be in the middle? If it turns out like my previous duck hunts, I'll probably just quail hunt after the first morning and let the rest of the group have the ducks. I know what to expect from quail hunting. I don't get to do it much anymore, but it's my favorite type of wing shooting.

So consider that steel shot is pretty light and doesn't really kick that bad in the first place.

Some 3" steel in a gas operated shotgun doesn't really "kick" that hard and if you put a limbsaver on the SBE it doesn't really kick that hard either.

Also consider you are going to waste a LOT of shells because you are going to take shots you otherwise would not take, meaning every time a group buzz the blind or pit you ARE going to empty the gun most likely. That's where while duck hunting, people that are otherwise good shots, going through a couple boxes is not uncommon. I use to guide on Reelfoot.... I'd suggest on average take about twice the amount of shells you think you'll need. Typically take a LOT of shooting to kill 30 ducks plus the guide's limit... I've done it hundreds of times with hundreds of different people. I'd say that is a fact on average. You might not get that good a hunt but you might. Oklahoma can be good.

If all goes as planned... you'll go through too many shells to worry about TSS. Take what you have loaded and go buy several boxes of steel to take with you for shooting cripples or if you run out.

For ducks you want to be on the down wind corner of the blind if there is one they are supposed to pitch into the wind to land, that doesn't always happen but that's the theory. Sometime the hole isn't setup for the current wind there are a lot of "ifs". They don't always do what they are supposed to.

i take it youve never sat next to preach on a dove field

Thanks for the info, Goatkiller. I didn't know you had been a duck guide too. Great to hear from someone who has hunted with a bunch of rookies like me.

Every duck hunt I've been on the other guys always told me we were gonna slaughter them, and it never happens. Last time I went, I got up at 2:30, helped put out decoys in the dark, and then had 2 wood ducks pass by at sunrise and that was it. I hope this hunt will be better than that, but I'm keeping expectations low. I can't imagine getting enough shooting to kill 18 mallards in 3 days, but I'm tempted to say I'm confident I can do that with 75 rounds of TSS. Maybe I need to carry 100.

Beadle, you were the one who killed every dove that passed by that morning.

About where you want to get in the blind, I hate being in the middle, then again I'm usually calling and need an end to be able to watch.

We usually try and tell each other to shoot your birds. If there is several, the ends take the edge birds and the middle guys take the middle.

Most end up throwing the plan out and shoot the closest bird.

I will usually try and pick the furtherest in range bird. Then pick up birds flying out. I used to be the guy that finished that one bird leaving. Dropped a many on the 3rd shot. My eyes are nothing like they used to be, lot's of whiffs these days.

I promised a pic of how the tss shoots with just a cylinder choke installed, so here it is:



As you can see, there's not a lot of difference; got 82% inside the 30" circle at 40 yds. It's still too tight for close shots, though it should drop a duck at very long range if I can hit him.

I'll talk to the outfitter and try to decide what to do. I could put a steel load in the barrel and 2 tss loads in magazine. Or considering that there will be 5 of us in the blind I could just shoot it as is. Also thinking I might take a sxs and put steel in one barrel and the tss in the other. It should be fun to test it regardless.

TSS continues to surprise me after a decade of use. To get an 82% pattern without any choke is not what I expected, and I was wrong in thinking I could open the pattern up with less choke. This would be a better setup for turkey than what I used for decades.

Did you shoot it at 25 to see how tight it is? Amazing how tight that it patterns. Change the amount of buffer to see if it will open up more? Just pretend they are turkeys and shoot them in the head.

There's no buffer in the shell and I don't think I wanna know how small the pattern is at 25 yds.

These shells were loaded on a Mec loader and aren't quite as consistent as our turkey loads that we weigh. I still counted 65 hits in a 10" circle a couple of inches high on the aiming dot. At 1335, they would penetrate better than #2 lead. And that's in a gun with no choke. This stuff seems to defy physics.

I have a feeling by the end of your hunt that everyone will want some of your magic shells. I wonder how a steel/tss load would pattern?

I wouldn't mix steel loads and then TSS loads, they will shoot different enough it might make for some tough shooting. I know when I shoot the E Shot from Bucks
Run it takes a few shots to adjust my leads from steel shot.

Very nice pattern you have there, and like AU mentioned, you will have some folks wanting those magic loads.

Good. Hal has some recipes for them. It opens patterns up too

I suspect one of those duplex loads would combine price and performance to make an excellent load for a serious duck hunter. It's a one time hunt for me, so I'm not worried about being practical.

I think I would get the pattern to open up some in a different gun. That chrome lined barrel of the SBE 1 has always shot any load really tight.

Like its been said before, its probably too tight of a group for puddlers inside 40yds. But a mix of tss and steel could be the golden ticket for divers or finishing off cripples on the water.

If you decide to try that and figure up a price per box, I'd like to give em a shot this season....

I finally made it back home yesterday from my OK hunt. We were supposed to fly into Atlanta Sunday and got caught up in the power outage. It was an appropriate conclusion to a dissappointing hunt. I expected the ducks to be iffy, but I really thought the quail were a sure thing. They weren't. I was the high man in our group and got only 4 quail in 1.5 days of hard hunting.

The duck hunting wasn't much better. I got 3 chances to get a mallard and missed them all. They were all pass shots in the 45-50 yard range but I should have gotten at least one. The other group got some good shooting one day and got 9. I did get a limit of ringnecks one morning and that was the most excitement of the hunt.

The good news is that my tss shells worked great. I gave the other 4 hunters some to try and one guy got several at what he described as long range. They certainly worked well on the ringnecks, but I had easier shots on them than I did the mallards. Thanks to all for the advice. I suspect any future duck hunting I do will be limited to jump shooting wood ducks on the creek.

Sorry to hear the birds didn't cooperate!

Still beats a hard day of work. Looks like you had some fun even though the birds weren't there. It's been one of those years.

Sorry to hear that it sucks. All the anticipation leading up to the hunt, and then being let down. It's like that dream when you wake up just before banging the hot chick. Such a blue ball. Don't give up on the ducks! One good hunt will hook you for life. Find a friend in the Mississippi River delta, or go to Argentina

Beats working, for sure.

The most surprising thing I saw out there was thousands of sandhill cranes. They were in groups of 100 or more and flew around slowly, maybe 2000 feet high. I never saw a one on the ground and our outfitter had no ideas on how to hunt them, but they are out there in big numbers. Anyone ever hunted them?

I'd love to hunt them, Ribeyes of the sky they are called. I think there is some hunting zones in TN. Wheeler Refuge winters 30-40,000, they have a Crane Festival in February. I hope AL will get a season. Since they are usually hunted of dry fields, I know states allow lead shot.

They can be deadly on dogs if wounded though so you gotta use your head.

Heck I'm getting all excited, flushed about 50 mallards today at the farm, loaded a box of shells and gonna give a try int he morning. Still can't bring myself to shoot TSS at ducks. I bought several several pounds of it at $24 a lb.

I don't understand why folks want a pattern so tight? They must point straighter than me.
I also like to eat the birds we shoot. All you need is modified at best and IC may be better.
Try Federal Black Clouds. We have found nothing that is better. But in the timber it just flat doesnt matter unless you are trying to treetop big ducks because shots should be close.

I didn't want the pattern that tight, hence the reason I started the thread. And 2 of those 3 patterns were shot with no choke at all, and still shot over 80%. The recipe has no buffer in it, so I don't know how to open it up.

I wouldn't prefer the tss as my first shot, but it sure worked well on 2nd and third shots. I shot all of the ringnecks inside of 35 yards; think I shot just one with steel and killed the others with tss.