>>93330718Sure thing.
Demolition ranch did a nice fun little video talking about spread of birdshot here recently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38a7L60SLJs At around 5 feet you're talking about an inch to 3" of spread at most out of cylinder bore (no choke tube) of your average 18" barrel shotgun. 10 feet you're going to still have a surprisingly tight pattern with a few stray pellets.
At 20 feet however you're going to start seeing a dramatically increased shot pattern where the pellets are more spread out enough that you are going to have a very hard time with penetration because you don't have that nice bunched up effect of acting almost like a single shot.
And penetration of birdshot, say, 7 and a half or 8 shot is really going to be low past that 10 foot mark.
As an analog, birdshot penetrates about 2 layers of drywall and stop. Birdshot is designed for birds. Small game birds usually on top of that like quail and pheasant. BB for turkey.
As an anecdote, someone once reported a victim shot on their porch from 6 feet away with birdshot and received a nasty chestwound. One pellet managed to get past his ribs but didn't damage his heart. He walked into the ambulance on his own two feet. Birdshot doesn't carry energy good or far.
There's uses for it, and you can do some fun things like cutting open the top of the shell or just a small enough hole to pour molten wax in, and using the wax to bind the shot together as a single slug. a wax slug with lead aggregate. It performs remarkably similarly to a solid slug and can be a lot more dangerous. But usually, birdshot isn't for taking down anything bigger than a bird.
