Shot sizes for African birds?

[Piet-Skiet]

I loaded up with no3 for everything from.duck to geese. 7,5 for dove and pigeon. I like no4 gor geunis

 

[Ridgewalker]

This was interesting! I hope to hunt birds in Africa behind dogs one day. I always see tons of ground birds.

 

[Velo Dog]

Presuming you are shooting a 12 bore:

One ounce of #8 for sand grouse and dove - cylinder (sand grouse actually look more like a dove than they do a "grouse" anyway).

One and one eighths ounce of #6 for rock pigeon - cylinder (essentially a hugeass dove).

One and one quarter ounce of #4 for guinea fowl - cylinder or modified.

(And I have no experience in hunting African water fowl, only N. American water fowl).

Since my above post, I have been blessed to do a bit of goose hunting in Africa (in Namibia, with the safari company shown attached to my name below).
I used 3 Millimeter lead shot in a 12 bore O/U, full / modified chokes.
It was excellent.
Likewise, it was excellent on guinea fowl as well.
Both species are in my experience quite as tough as Canadian geese are up here in Alaska.
They crumpled when hit with 3mm Brenneke brand 2 & 3/4” lead.

 

[Hoss Delgado]

I prefer #6 , #3 and # 1

 

[Piet-Skiet]

I also prefer 6 for rock pigeon but availability is a problem. For spurfowl I use AAA.

 

[Sam470]

Hi all;
Just curious as to what the "common wisdom" is for shot sizes (and payloads) for African birds......do you typically use just one size ("one size fits all"), or do you go up a few sizes as the birds get larger? Also, I'm curious as to what payload (1 oz, 1 1/8 oz, etc) is used for each species as well.
If you could let me know where your shells are manufactured (for the size you are refering to, I would appreciate it, as a #5 American is not necessarily the same as a U.K. #5, etc. If you want to put down the payloads in grams, that's fine...........I'm pretty good with the metric system.

Looking forward to your responses!

I used a O/U .410 with 3” #4 for guinea foul and 2 1/2” #8 ‘s for dove and franklin. Seemed to work fine.

 

[rookhawk]

7.5s or 8s for doves and sandgrouse
6s and 7.5s for francolin
4s and 6s for Guinea Fowl.

Please take note, these are US shot sizes, UK shot sizes are 1 size different.

Shot payload is a contentious issue. I refer you to the "square load" for optimal pattern in any gun. You'll have to do some searching to find a proper "square load" rather than a stringy, hard recoiling, less effective "magnum load".

10 gauge = 1-1/4 ounce
12 gauge = 1-1/8 ounce
16 gauge = 1 ounce
20 gauge = 7/8 ounce
28 gauge = 3/4 ounce
.410 = 9/16 ounce

 

[Kawshik Rahman]

I do not know about Africa unfortunately, but l use the following shot sizes in my Beretta 12 bore over - under -
Snipe or dove - Number 8
Pigeon or Quail - Number 6
Teal ducks - Number 1
Geese or Crane - AAA ( which is legal in Bangladesh but in the United States of America when l go to visit my niece and her boyfriend , l use BB )