Winchester Blind Side?

Unbeknownst to me, apparently last year I bought a box of these shells. I shot them today and one of the bb’s fell out of the goose meat when cleaning it.

Low and behold, the bb’s are square shaped!?!?! I never even looked at the box that hard last year. I just knew I was looking for BB loads and saw the box.

At any rate, anybody else shoot Blind Side? I have a hard time believing a square bb would fly true through the air, especially with a substantial wind. I don’t know. I did get birds with them today, but chances are the next box I buy will be round bb’s! (Unless convinced otherwise)

Hexagonal shaped actually.

If you google the reviews on them, you won’t be impressed.
You can stack more pellets in the wad than round but only a few more

Patterning seems to be an issue too.

They will fly straight as long as the energy is there which is fine cuz once they lose it, they lose penetration too.

Bottom line is probably a gimmick that failed.

Blind Side #2 is my go to load for pheasant hunting. Penetration is excellent. Most birds DOA. Patterns has been fine. Like all steel loads, it needs some time/space to open up the pattern. Others in my group have all switched to Blind Side seeing my results.

captddh wrote:

Blind Side #2 is my go to load for pheasant hunting. Penetration is excellent. Most birds DOA.

I thought I was overdoing it with 3″ #5 bismuth

I’ve heard nothing but good things with blind side. There are two guys in my hunting group that use #4 and they work well. I’m cheap, so Federal blue box is what fills my blind bag.

From what I’ve heard from guys who have used it, it either patterns fantastic or absolutely abysmal. Federal blue box for me here, too. I have considered buying some hevi-shot for the early goose season, but I’m not a good enough shot to burn up those shells on ducks

Reef W wrote:

thought I was overdoing it with 3″ #5 bismuth

You are.

loads of shaped pellets open up faster than loads of round pellets. that’s why blindside has the special wad, to hold the pattern together longer. So rather than a pattern that opens gradually as yardage increases, you have a slug until whatever point the wad falls away, then a rapidly opening pattern of pellets that are bleeding energy faster due to air resistance. Penetration values absolutely suck on blindside past 35 yards. We burned some up on a game farm cleanup hunt 2 winters ago and had a bunch of pheasants with pellets stuck in the skin.

Gimmick steel loads are designed to steal your money. spend your money on some good choke tubes and patterning sessions with cheap steel. I can get 90% or better 30″ patterns at 40 yards with 3.5″ steel 1’s costing $13/box. I can get 80% or better 30″ patterns at 40 yards with 3″ steel 2’s costing $8.99/box. If you want better performance, buy bismuth. It’s not much more expensive than black cloud or blindside, and it’s better than both. Or buy hevi-x when on sale. 10g/cc tungsten load, and can be found for under $1 per round occasionally.

Weekender wrote:

Unless convinced otherwise

Shoot a target!!!!

I shoot black cloud 3″BB late season for roosters.

Thanks for the replies! Although I did get birds yesterday, I wasn’t entirely impressed with the results. Not many holes in the birds and usually when they’re at the range I got them yesterday, there’s substantially more damage. So I’m going to finish off the box, but I feel far more confident shooting the round bb’s.

Weekender wrote:

Thanks for the replies! Although I did get birds yesterday, I wasn’t entirely impressed with the results. Not many holes in the birds and usually when they’re at the range I got them yesterday, there’s substantially more damage. So I’m going to finish off the box, but I feel far more confident shooting the round bb’s.

If your actually curious, you need to pattern them on paper at various yardage.

People actually concerned about fitting the gun to the proper load do this.

If you find a good concentration of bbs on paper, they you’ve identified it isn’t the shot, but the shooter.

I used to think highly of these rounds, until I shot paper and keyholed 1 of 5 @100yds. Explained a lot of misses.

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