Читать книгу Reloading for Shotgunners онлайн

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Let’s be honest. Unless someone has a great deal of time and hunts every game bird at every possible opportunity, from turkey to dove and ducks, with a few trips to the deer woods thrown in with slugs or buckshot, the average legal and ethical hunter will not shoot half-a-dozen boxes of shells a year. Therefore, unless a shotgun hunter is a really lousy shot, the best economic decision is to NOT reload.

The hunter-only gunner should study game loads, pattern his shotguns, and then buy the very best shells he can find because, by pulling the trigger so few times a year, relatively speaking, he can afford to pay almost any price for a box of high quality shells. In this case, $18 for a box of 10 magnum buffered 2-3/4-inch Bismuth No-Tox shells is not an economic hardship. You will not shoot enough times during a year to make a recognizable dent in your family budget.

A 12-gauge shotgun is the standard in North America and perhaps around the world as well. There are still plenty of 10 gauges and millions of sub-gauge 16-, 20-, 28- and 410-bore guns in the hands of shooters, though. Folks who shoot sub-gauges – because they enjoy the challenge, prefer the softer recoil, or perhaps because they’re training a spouse or youngster usually find that shell costs are higher than for their 12-gauge. For instance, for Winchester AA 2-3/4-inch #9 target loads from CheaperThanDirt.com, 12- and 20-gauge boxes of 25 shells cost $5.51 whereas 25-shell boxes of 28-gauge and 410 bore are $6.53. That’s a difference of $1.02 per box or 4¢ a shell. Shoot the day of sporting clays with a practice event that we mentioned earlier and the difference per gun can be as much as $6.12. Depending upon how much you and your family shoot, this difference can quickly become significant and can be an influential factor in deciding whether to reload.