Birdshot Facts & Figures
Earlier this week, I saw a cable TV report (I wish I could remember which one) that “there might be as many as 200 pellets still inside Mr. Whittington. As a hunter, that struck me as a bit high so I did some checking into how plausible that was.
As part of that checking, I dropped the good people at the Federal Cartridge Co. an email. Here is my original email:
Yesterday, I heard that the man that Vice President Cheney shot had possibly 200 pellets still inside of him. That seemed awfully high for a 28 gauge at 30 yards. How many pellets of 7 1/2 or 8 shot go into a 28 gauge shotshell. Also, would an over/under shotgun like Cheney was using likely be set to an improved cylinder or cylinder choke?
Thanks for whatever help you can give me. The numbers just didn’t seem realistic so I figured that turning to an ammunition manufacturer seemed like the most logical way to get answers. Thanks so much.
Gary Gross
St. Cloud, MN
I got their response today. Here is that email:
Not really as I don’t know who’s load or what the load was I cant tell
you for sure.However a typical target load of 28 ga contains 3 /4 oz
which is 439 pellets of # 9, 307 # 8’s and 262 # 7.5IC might be the choke I would use maybe Modified.
I was guessing that you might use an improved cylinder choke and 7 1/2 or 8 shot for quail since quail are so small. It seems highly unlikely that 200 pellets struck him, much less stayed inside him. This isn’t to minimize the injuries Mr. Whittington sustained. They’re very real. Considering that he was likely wearing a longsleeved shirt underneath his blaze orange vest, I’d doubt that many pellets entered through his upper body, if any at all. If that’s true, and I suspect it is, there’s no way a pattern from even a modified choked gun would hold together like that at 30 yards.
I also have trouble believing that Mr. Whittington was closer than 30 yards because if he had been 30 ft. like some were speculating, he would have sustained far greater injuries than the Corpus Christi Hospital has reported. In fact, if he’d been 30 feet distant, Mr. Whittington might have died in that field.
The point of all this is to show the hysterical reporting that was flying around Washington Monday and Tuesday.
Cross-post at LetFreedomRing
February 17th, 2006 at 4:49 am
[...] California Conservative does some investigation on the amount of bird-shot that actually hit the Cheney’s hunting partner. An earlier report said that as many as 200 pellets hit Whittington. So being the smart reporter, California Conservative wrote to Federal Cartridge Co. to get some info. They were kind enough to send him the information. Here is the email content psted. The entire article is here. Not really as I don’t know who’s load or what the load was I cant tell you for sure.However a typical target load of 28 ga contains 3 /4 oz which is 439 pellets of # 9, 307 # 8’s and 262 # 7.5 [...]