Winchester Blind Side: Nice ammo, but what does it do to the ducks?

One of the things I was most excited to learn about at the 2011 SHOT Show was a new kind of waterfowl shot from Winchester: Blind Side.

Now, I'm not an ammo geek by any measure, but I am interested in anything that will help bring down ducks more effectively, which is what Winchester promised this shot would do.

Here's the short version of how Blind Side works: The steel shot is "hex-cut" with rounded edges, so the pellets looks like dice. This does two things:

One, it allows Winchester to pack the shell more densely, as you can see in the photo above. A box of 3-inch 2s in 12 gauge contains 1-3/8 ounces of shot, which is an eighth of an ounce more shot than Kent Fasteel's heaviest 3-inch load.

And two, the irregular shape creates more trauma on impact. It also slows the shot down, but not by much - at 1400 fps, this stuff flies only 25 feet per second slower than Kents with 1-1/4 ounce loads.

The trauma is the key here, and the Blind Side brochures hype it with almost alarming glee.

My first question was, "But what does it do to the ducks?"

In my house, we hunt for the table. Yes, hunting is super fun, and bringing down a bird effectively is really satisfying, but if you've reduced it to ground beef in the process, you might as well get your food at McDonald's.

The rep I spoke to had done field testing, but not kitchen testing. When Phil Bourjaily at Field & Stream wrote about testing this stuff on flighted mallards, he didn't mention bird damage. One of the regulars here, Hilary Dyer of Waterfowl & Retriever magazine, had shot Blind Side at ducks too, but she'd given away the ducks so she didn't know how they looked.

Fortunately for me, Winchester rushed me a couple boxes of Blind Side (3-inch 2s) gratis before the final weekend of duck season, and I actually hit a few ducks with it, so I can tell you how it works in the field and on the table.

In the field: I was not at my best when I used this stuff on closing weekend - I kinda shot like crap through most of January - and I can tell you that Blind Side did not make me a better shot. Not that I expected it to, but one can always hope, right?

But my experience led me to share Bourjaily's conclusion that if you hit a duck well with this stuff, it's gonna go down hard. I did very little chasing when I was using this shot if I hit the birds in the neck or body. With wing shots, though, it's pretty much like any other wing shot - you either break the wing or you don't, and the amount of chasing required follows accordingly.

One more note: I usually shoot 1-1/8 ounce loads, and I was worried about the extra recoil from a heavier load. But I didn't notice any difference in recoil at all. The biggest adjustment I had to make was lead, because I'm used to faster shot (1560 fps).

The autopsy: When I plucked and gutted the birds I shot with Blind Side, I was a little surprised, looking at the wounds, at how hard the birds had gone down. Normally a bird that falls hard will have lots of shredded innards - shot through the heart, or torn up lungs with lots of evidence of bleeding.

But some of these ducks had wounds that didn't even seem to penetrate the body cavity - something that would probably just cripple or sail a duck with the shot I normally use. The one exception was a poor little greenwing teal that I just murderated. Not pretty.

The table fare: When I was finished dressing these birds, they looked like I'd shot them with BBs instead of 2s. I'm thinking that would be the "more trauma" thing. Considering I spent most of this season shooting BBs or 1s, that means this shot did the same level of meat damage that I'm accustomed to, only I was slinging more pellets because they're smaller.

Dental damage? When Boyfriend bit down on a piece of the shot in a couple gadwalls we ate this weekend (and it always works that way - if I shot the duck, he gets the shot), it was no different than biting down on any other steel shot. And no, he didn't crack a tooth.

The fun thing about Blind Side is that when you set it down on the table to admire what you almost just ate, it doesn't roll around much. Of course, if you don't enjoy playing with your shot at the table, this might not matter to you.

So what's the upshot? When this stuff hits the market this summer, it'll retail for $17-$22, which ain't exactly cheap, though it's not as bad as Hevi-Shot.

But I can think of three circumstances under which it'd be worth paying that price: 1) If I'm shooting well and not wasting a lot of shot. 2) If I'm hunting without a dog and want to minimize my chasing. 3) If I'm hunting an area with dense cover and it's really important to drop ducks right where I hit 'em.

Crippling fewer ducks and losing fewer ducks is important to me, and I think it's worth paying more for anything that helps accomplish that goal.

Postscript: If you want to check out some really cool footage of how this shot flies, check out Bourjaily's post today on the Gun Nut blog. It includes footage of the unusual diamond-cut wad this shot uses.

My next post-SHOT Show review: The Head Down cap in Feather Flage camo.

This is the one that prompted every duck hunter who saw it to say, "Holy crap, why hasn't anyone thought of that before?"

Well, with two weekends of hard duck hunting, I got a really good understanding of how it works. Stay tuned for that review.

© Holly A. Heyser 2011