How much lead for geese?

[Fisher Dave]

The lead varies greatly on the velocity of your shells and the size of the shot. In my steel shot reloading manual it has some very accurate info on steel shot tragectory ... unfortunately its not sitting next to me .. I'll try to dig it up over the next couple days and post some results for various velocities in retrospect to shot size. We need to remember smaller shot slows much faster than larger shot.

My reloads I use personally are 1650 fps and I aim at the bill to 1' ahead of the bird at the most and getting good hits with BBB - T shot. Your factory ammo is slower so just as a guess I'm going to say about 3'-5' (1-2 bird lengths)on a goose at 40 yards flying at its max speed. I'm not going to say this is accurate .. but should be close.

[Guest]

After some pretty poor shooting this weekend I have a question how much do you lead geese? Of course there are a million variables to that question. But on a average 30-40 yard passing shot how much lead is needed? I should have had 6-8 over the last two days instead I came home with 3.

[Fisher Dave]

Better late than never witht he follow up I guess .. just found the book.

This info is based on #T Steel shot (.2 inch/ballistic Coefficient .0296) at a muzzle velocity of 1400 ft/sec .. Your factory ammo will vary .. most is slightly slower (1250 - 1350 fps). This is based at 45mph (approx waterfowl average top speed by the book*)

T Shot .. 1400 fps

Range . Velocity..Energy..T.O.F.. 45mph
Yards . Ft/Sec ...Ft-Lbs. seconds..lead feet

0 ... 1400 ..... 36.1 ..0.000 ....0
10 ... 1157 ..... 24.7 ..0.023 ....1.5
20 ... 988 ..... 18.0 ..0.051 ....3.4
30 ... 869 ..... 13.9 ..0.084 ....5.5
40 ... 775 ..... 11.1 ..0.120 ....7.9
50 ... 697 ..... 9.0 ..0.161 ....10.6
60 ... 630 ..... 7.3 ..0.206 ....13.6
70 ... 572 ..... 6.0 ..0.256 ....16.9

This is about as accurate as it can get. All of these figures at this velocity and shot size hold adequate energy to kill a goose.

This chart will not be accurate with smaller shot sizes (duck) .. I'll post another soon for #2 and #BB shot.

[hunt4food]

Leading ducks and geese is definitely difficult to give advice on. I usually just wait until they land and then I swat them like mosquitos. 10ga. ammos is expensive

really, I usually lead them a couple of feet. I think making sure you follow through with your "swing" is equally important.