Express Super 16 Gauge 30 gram Fibrewad 5’s

More commonly loaded as 21 or 24 gram loads, Lyalvale Express have decided to give their all new 16 bore cartridge some real stopping power with their Super 16 Gauge ammo. Maintaining the 16 bore ethos of 20 bore lightness and handling combined with a 12 bore’s performance, previous cartridges have always left the average 16 bore user at a minor disadvantage when it came to dealing with those late season screamers. Not so now, as the Express Super 16 is equal to the fastest, highest birds you’re likely to encounter.

Quality Components

Delivered in Express’ familiar pale grey game load box, the green label indicating the ammo within is fibrewad, each mid-blue Super 16 comes in Express’ trademark gold printed Cheddite case measuring an exact 54mm inclusive of the short 9mm head. Internally, an average of 30.19grams or 275 pellets of 5’s sits atop a short fibrewad and unusually, a plastic over power disc. Below this sits 1.39grams of the familiar square cut green and copper fast burn propellant, the complete cartridge manufactured to Express’ usual high standards.

Shot on the range through the ½ choke barrel of a Browning B25 16 bore, the mean average observed speed over two strings of five shots equated to 1,194fps. Likewise, ¼ choke at thirty yards into a 29” patterning card produced an 87% pellet count with an additional 4% just outside the diameter of the main pattern. Most noticeable was the 64% central concentration within the smaller 15” central circle highlighting the fact that like all smaller gauges, improved accuracy is still the key.   

Hard Hitting

Shot over a hundred birder along with some late evening crow busting, Express’ Super 16’s more than demonstrated their stopping power. Forty yard targets are but a mere trifle, each charge of 5’s hits - and hits hard - clay or corvid stopping dead in their airborne tracks to a degree that if you felt ever so slightly under-gunned all such thoughts quickly evaporate. Express have always excelled at designing and manufacturing high performance cartridges and with the Super 16, they’ve surpassed themselves, this new ammunition positively devastating when it connects with the target. That said these small blue cartridges do have a slight downside…

My advice to any 16 bore shooter looking for a late season pheasant stopper is to get themselves a case of these Express cartridges. Whether it’s walked-up or driven, these shells will stop the fastest, highest birds you’re likely to encounter. Personally, I’d be more than tempted to mix them with one of Express’ lighter 16 bore loads, as a full day or even a full drive shooting nothing but these in what is inherently a lightweight shotgun will take its toll. Make no mistake, Express has come up with an out and out barnstormer of a load but it kicks. Given the very nature of the 16 gauge format, it’d be a heavyweight shooter who’d walk away from a day’s shooting without feeling the effects of the Super 16.

Final Thoughts

These really are a superb load and, used when conditions dictate, will put the 16 bore shooter on more than a level footing with their 12 bore counterparts. They hit as hard as they feel and will ‘down’ some seriously impressive birds for you. But to walk onto the peg with nothing else may just prove a tad uncomfortable.

PRICE (PER BOX OF 25): £7.65