Goose Hunting with Hevi Metal

       I picked up a box of Hevi Metal 3.5" 1.5oz 1500fps #2s to try out for the last couple of weeks of goose season since the birds are not committing to decoys as well as usual. Although I have killed nearly every duck and goose in my life with cheap $15 per box Xpert 1500fps steel, I decided to pay $30 after I had a bad experience with pulling the trigger on birds that were at the "borderline range" and not having the birds fall, even though they were hit. The Hevi Metal shells are basically a half and half mix of #2 steel shot and #2 Hevi Shot which is actually about the size of a #4 since Hevi Shot loads smaller pellets in order to have a denser pattern with the same energy, since the pellets are much heavier.
       My brother and I set up in a small field (30-50 yards across and 300 yards long) that the geese never land in, but will sometimes land in with the help of decoys or check out the decoys long enough for us to decide if they are in range or not. We heard birds coming from a long ways off and I started calling to let them know where we were, and as soon as we could see them, the pair was "locked up". As the birds neared the 60 yard mark, they began to veer off towards a field across the river from us (the North Fork of the Rivanna) so when they came inside 40 yards, I gave Wyatt the o.k. to shoot. I could not get on the birds in time (they were behind us) and Wyatt shot once and only got one or two pellets in a non vital area, because the goose reared its neck back following the shot, a sign that it was been hit. I called more and the birds decided to give us another pass at 40 yards again, we unloaded our guns and both birds fell (Wyatt used a Browning Citori O/U, I used a Benelli Nova) I knew I missed my first shot, but the geese fell when I pulled the trigger on my second two shots. Wyatt was convinced he killed the first bird that went down, but said that I killed the second bird since he had fired his two shots by the time it went down.
      We saw 3 ducks and 5 more geese, but it was after shooting hours when we saw the geese (and ducks are out of season) so we had to pass on those, but it is always fun to see waterfowl. We packed up our 10 decoys, and headed home. When we were cleaning the geese, we decided that since Wyatt was using Xpert BBs, we could look for pellets in the bird to decide who got it. I dissected the bird Wyatt said he killed because I was sure that I had brought it down, and guess what, I found a #2 Hevi Shot pellet (#4) just below the skin on the exiting side, the other 7 pellet holes had been clean pass-thrus. So it was obvious to us that the Hevi Metal worked wonders, OR Wyatt is just a bad shot, only time will tell. I should be headed out to goose hunt in the morning on Saturday and then heading out to a dairy farm to see if the pigeons will cooperate this time, so there should be more to come. Thanks for reading!

 

The geese weighed 9 and 11 pounds, and in reference to a Nova with a 28" barrel, you can see that these are very large birds!