Cartridge shot sizes for small quarry

[Ashley Cawley]

To any shooters out there wielding a trusty shotgun and hunting for food, I'm wondering; whats your favorite shot sizes when it comes to hunting pigeon and rabbits?

Please select from the poll and feel free to leave a comment.

[FishyFolk]

If you go for both on the same shoot, I would bring 6 shot, simply on the basis that the Norwegian hunting association recomends US 5-6 shot for Hare, and US 6-7 shot for pigeon.
So 6 shot should cover both if you can shoot both during the same shooting trip. I believe rabbits are smaller than our hare (wild rabbits are not common here). So 6 shot should be fine for those.
Thats what I did for hare and mountain grouse.


But I have not been shooting since our ban on lead shot was introduced as my Trusty old Star Baikal is not up to the task of firing modern shot. So if you are going to use steel, or vismut or any other modern shot material, I cant advice you, as I have zero experience with those.

[ian c]

I like number 6 shot I have a 12 gauge 32" full choke and it has served me very well using 6 shot, I also carry a couple of SSG,s.

[KaiTheIronHound]

I spent a good portion of my teenage years blasting bunnies around farms i worked on. I generally lugged around a .22 or a .22 mag as a day-to-day out in the paddocks gun, as it was quite reasonable to run across a fox or cat (both damaging feral species here), but the chances of getting within shotgun range for them was pretty slim. However, as i got bigger i started carrying an open choke SxS 12 bore as i could carry the weight and take various different sorts of round to deal with everything from rabbits to feral pigs and the occasional deer or goat. For rabbits and ducks i tended on number 6, though pretty much whatever i had available at or above the size of 7.5 shot seemed to work fine (basically whatever i had floating around the cabinet is what came with me). The open choke was good because it ate anything i chucked through it, including wax slugs.