OT, but you guys might know about shotguns.

[gfretwell]

[Doug Miller]

Because he wasn't shot with BB pellets, or anything anywhere close to that big. They would have been using #6, 7-1/2, or 8 shot -- the largest of which is less than half the size of a BB.

[Doug Miller]

I'll have to take issue with that last statement. I saw a guy at the grocery store just this afternoon that could *easily* cover a 30-inch circle with his body, maybe 36. Yukkkkkk!

[Woody Brison]

size dia(inches)

12 .05 11 .062 10 .07 9 1/2 .075-.080" (2.03mm) 9 .08 quail 8 1/2 .085" (2.16mm) 8 .090" (.2.29mm) small birds, quail 7 1/2 .095-.100" (2.41mm) pheasant, quail 7 .10 6 .110" (2.79mm) pheasant, turkey 5 .120" (3.05mm) ducks, turkey 4 .130" (3.30mm) turkey 3 .140" (3.56mm) 2 .150" (3.81mm) geese 1 .160" (4.06mm) BB .177-.180" (4.57mm) BBB .190" (4.83mm) T .20 (5.08mm) buckshot

Possibly the pellet in Whittington's heart is distorted, and

5mm is the largest dimension; when it was loaded into the shell, it measured smaller.

I'm certain that one reason officials aren't giving out more information is because the more they give out, the more there is for people to find conspiracy theories over.

Wood

[maradcliff]

[Steve B]

Shot size runs from IIRC, 00 to #9, with #9 being the smallest. 00 is about as big as a pencil eraser is round.

The size of the animal determines the size of the shot.

There is a BB shot, which is used for geese. It is the size of, well, BBs, that a BB gun uses.

Standard size for quail would be 7 1/2, 8, or 9 shot.

HTH.

Steve, an old quail hunter

[Bob G.]

Its been way to many years since I shot Skeet competitively BUT when loading my own shells I seem to remember loading 7/8 or 1 ounce of shot for competition...and this was in 12 & 20 G loads..When loading 28 or 410 G shells I loaded much less shot..... Just been too many years and my press and load charts are not exactly at my fingertips...

I would "guess" and that is really what it is..a Guess... but a field load would have about 350-400 No 8 "BB's" in it at most... The Pattern at 30 yards in a field gun would put maybe 100 in a 30 inch circle at that distance (again guessing since I have patterened any loads in a long long time....

When I firest read the accounts my 1st thoughts were 200 "BB's just sounded like way too many hitting even a man sized target...at 30 yards...

Bob G.

[Bob G.]

I should have read this post before I made my comment. on the number of ("BB's) This sounds much mor ein line with what I was thinking .. Personally I can not imagine 200 ("BB's) hitting inside a normal Pattern Circle at 30 yards

Oh well... Bob G.

[Steve B]

You know how freely the press uses zeros.

Last time I stepped off 35 paces (big steps, not yards) to test my 12ga. 28" modified barrel, I got 35 pellets in a 16" circle. And that was with #9 shot, what I use for quail. So, there were more individual shot than in a 7

1/2 shot load. Even if I had expanded that out to a 30" circle, I doubt it would have gone over 100 holes. And in the 16" circle, there were about ten to twelve in the area that would have actually hit a quail.

The drawing I saw of the old bird's injuries showed a very concentrated pattern in his upper chest, neck and jaw. This indicates to me that he was much closer than what they say.

The shot pattern on the victim is what will establish the distance from the barrel. No adjusting those constants. I'm amazed that all these "journalists" haven't applied these facts and come up with the distance "theory" yet. Well, I forgot. "Journalists" aren't always interested in things factual, are they?

Where is CSI when you need them? Oh, not to worry. I bet a dollar that they will have a story with this as an outline by the end of the season. I bet they are filming it as we speak.

Steve

[mm]

good chart snipped.

You may well be right. For example, my sources tell me that the night before, someone replaced the shot in Cheney's shotgun shells with larger pellets, knowing that Cheney would shoot this guy the next day.

Also, the reason Hurrican Katrina did so much damage is that it was a Russian Communist hurricane. You can tell by its name.

Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.

[mm]

So you think the man was a target, huh? Very interesting.

Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.

[mm]

Actually, I saw an interview, the first day where they were standing outside, with a doctor in which, to the best of my ears' capability, the doctor said something about being hit with between 6 and 200 pellets. The press didn't make up "200". I know he said 200, but I couldn't figure out why, if they had the guy in front of them, they couldn't figure out if it was more like 6 or more like 200.

Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.

[HeyBub]

Hunting accidents happen several hundred times a year. They are not common, in fact, quite rare, but not unheard of. Nobody goes to jail.

[HeyBub]

Quail fly no more than two feet above the ground or grass. They are ground-huggers, unlike, say, phesant which climb for the clouds.

[Steve B]

For someone who deals in facts, 6 and 200 are about as far apart as Kansas and Afghanistan.

Steve

[– Colonel –]

More to the point, although a "5-millimeter" pellet (the description on ABC News) is only TWICE as big as the #8 or #7-1/2 shot they were using, it weighs about TEN TIMES AS MUCH as either of them...meaning that at equivalent velocity, it would carry 10 times as much energy. (E=mv^2)

Hell, maybe Cheney WAS using "5 millimeter" shot. I hunt quail quite a bit and I can't imagine how #8 or even #7-1/2 shot could, at 30 yards, possibly penetrate Whittington's jacket, his shirt, his skin, his muscle, his chest membrane and his heart. Maybe they were using depleted uranum...?

[– Colonel –]

Well, I think you're using the word "roughly" rather ROUGHLY.

A "BB" measures about 0.18" diameter.

#8 shot, which is commonly used for quail hunting, measures 0.09" diameter.

I sometimes use #7-1/2 on quail (which I hunt quite a lot) but even that measures only 0.095" diameter.

I've never heard of anyone using anything larger on quail.

So the shot Cheney was probably using was about HALF the diameter of "BB" shot.

[– Colonel –]

You quite obviously have never hunted bobwhite quail, sir.

[– Colonel –]

yes.

no.