Winchester's Final Pass & Last Call Waterfowl Loads Impress

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When it comes to testing shotgun ammo, I like a surplus of shells and a variety of settings in which to hunt. I prefer hunting alone, thus removing the guesswork of how the load performs. I like patterning it a couple times on paper, then going on as many hunts as possible.

But killing birds is the ultimate ammunition testing ground. Enter Nebraska. I recently hunted with outfitter Ross Juelfs, near Scottsbluff. We hunted three habitats: the famed North Platte River, a field of corn stubble, and a skinny, warmwater creek.

We hunted the North Platte twice, in two different locations. Both offered close-range shooting on decoying birds, but also longer-distance shots at birds that were reluctant to finish.

We hunted twice in cornfields. One afternoon saw 8-13 mph sustained winds. We shot ducks and lesser Canada geese that day. The other field hunt was calm and a fresh push of lessers had come in with a cold snap. Geese decoyed well in the wind, though they required some pass shooting on the calm day.

The Ideal Testing Location

The warmwater creek was everything I’d envisioned. At first light, mallards back peddled into the decoys. You could have killed them with a .410 using dove loads. But as the morning progressed, the ducks became leery, which required longer shots.

I was joined by three other hunters, so I sat at the end of the blind on each hunt in an effort to gain some separation. Between the mornings and afternoons, there were five total hunts. I shot two loads of Winchester Final Pass in 12 gauge. A 3-inch load of Nos. 2 1/2 and 4 shot and a 3.5-inch load of Nos. 1 1/2 + BB. Cutting these loads open, the first thing that impressed me was the near-perfect roundness of each zinc-plated steel pellet. I’ve always been a fan of round, as simple physics confirms round flies with efficiency—that’s the science teacher in me.

Both loads patterned well in a Browning Maxus with a modified choke. The 2 1/2 + 4 shot payload was impressive on ducks out to 45 yards. When I swatted a cripple on the river at 40 yards, the mist that consumed the mallard caught my attention. It was a very tight pattern for a steel load. The blended steel load delivered noticeable energy and tight patterns on closer ducks, killing with consistency.

On the field hunt for mallards and geese, I upsized to the 3.5-inch 1 1/2 + BB blended steel payload. I was on the downwind side of the blind batting cleanup. It was windy with gusts exceeding 20 mph. A number of shots I took were more than 50 yards at birds speeding away with a stiff tailwind. The load dropped ducks and geese with impressive authority. I shot the last goose of the day as it flew straight overhead, all of 65 yards. There’s something to this Final Pass 1/2-size steel shot. Not only does it deliver dense patterns, it kills birds with consistency.

Further Evaluation

Back home—where I could shoot by myself and see exactly how the load performs—I shot the Final Pass 2 1/2 + 4 payload in 20 gauge. On one hunt, I shot at eight surf scoters and killed a limit of seven. All were shot from a layout boat, all were head shots, and all birds were stone dead. I shot it on multiple puddle duck hunts in a range of conditions. For a steel blend in both 20 and 12 gauge, Final Pass gets the job done and at a very affordable price point.

On two of the hunts in Nebraska, I shot Winchester’s Last Call Double Shot. The first three shots I fired dropped fat, northern greenheads. I was on the good end of the blind shooting over a warmwater creek and had separation from the other hunters. I saw exactly how the load performed on each of the three singles.

I took a break, watching my buddies shoot the same load. One shot a Maxus, two shot A5s. They killed with precision. Later in the morning birds became wary of our blind. It was 11º outside and heaters inside the pit blind melted the frost on the grass that covered us. Surrounded by white frost, the now yellow blind stood out. It didn’t matter because even with ducks turning at 40-50 yards, the Last Call kept pounding them, hard.

The custom blend of Nos. 2 1/2 steel and 9 TSS was addicting to shoot. Every time I pulled the trigger, I knew ducks would die. The performance of the high-density 18 g/cc TSS blew my mind, as I wasn’t sure what to expect from the tiny pellet. This load dropped ducks with force. I cut open two of these shells and counted pellets. I cut open two of these shells and counted pellets. They were within one pellet of each other, which speaks to the precision of this stacked payload.

Eagerness

I couldn’t wait to test the Last Call Double Shot back home. Using a 12-gauge Benelli SBE3 with the new AI barrel, this load hammered ducks out to 60 yards. I shot it on two hunts, limiting each time on mallards, pintails, wigeon and wood ducks. Every shot from 50 yards and in, crushed birds dead in the sky. When cleaning the birds, high counts of TSS wound channels were the norm, yet I never found a pellet because they blew right through. The Last Call Double Shot clearly maximizes pellet count and pattern density, as well as downrange power delivery. In my 49 years of waterfowl hunting, this is a top-performing load.

On the final afternoon in Nebraska, I borrowed a Winchester SX4 with an aftermarket full choke. It didn’t like the 3 ½-inch Final Pass loads much, and I wish I’d had time to pattern it on paper. I struggled to shoot three geese with it. I switched to Last Call TSS and fired two shots with the buffered payload of 18 g/cc in straight No. 5 shot and crumpled two geese. They were 35 yards out and feathers clearly flew out the backside of both birds. I like shooting grapefruit-size patterns at that distance, and this setup did that. The increased pellet count and energy of this load, over steel, is astounding. I look forward to shooting more of this load in the closing weeks of the season.

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