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Garhart,

Glad to hear I am not the only one who was unhappy with Sportsman's "Hot Shot".
Not only did it not have very many round pellets, the final straw for me was a bag of 7 1/2's that had shot that went from #7 1/2 to #9 in size. Felt like I was using clean reclaim.

Joined: 15 Jun 2010 Posts: 1358 Location: Twin Cities, MN

I can get Heper delivered by the pallet to a club in the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities. To make it worthwhile have to get a minimum of 1 ton - 80 bags. There’s a trap shooter there who has already done this and he gets a ton at a time for himself! This means we can’t have people wanting one or two bags, but order in quantities of 10 bags.
You can get by with soft shot when shooting 1 or 1.125oz in a 12 gauge, but when you’re shooting longer sporting targets with .75 or.875oz loads hard shot makes a big difference.

Joined: 09 Mar 2016 Posts: 755 Location: Mn.

Jeff count me in!

You mean some people believe the manufactures when they say 6% antimony? Or some gun writer says so even though they are clueless about metallurgy?

Good luck finding true 6% antimony shot. Heper and some STS bagged shot is about as close as you are going to get at 5%. Heper measured with a x-ray fluorescence spectrometer is 5% as is some bagged STS

West Coast and Lawrence (the same now that Mayco owns both now) comes in at 3.0-3.2%. As does Spartan.

And yes Heper is very round and uniform. And very close to true to size.

Hardness testing done by dropped weight puts Lawrence, West Coast and Spartan all are pretty much identical in hardness. Top Guns have harder shot then they do

Then again the fewer people after Heper shot the easier it is for me to find. I think everyone else should stay with Lawrence and West Coast LOL.

Member Joined: 02 Feb 2007 Posts: 371 Location: mpls mn

I'm up for 10+ bags lets do it Jeff

Joined: 16 Jul 2015 Posts: 2126 Location: Hudson,Wy

If the stuff proves to be uniform, then hopefully some distributor will pick it up here in the States. 10 bags isn't hard to do if a person can mix sizes. 10 bags of only one size is a bit much for someone who doesn't compete regularly. Of course, if dove and quail numbers in the Southwest remain high...10 bags of 8 1/2 shot would be mighty nice.

Member Joined: 06 Oct 2007 Posts: 2349 Location: West MI

https://cacassociatesinc.com/?syclid=578b5a81-0475-429e-b602-f83e3276db3a

FWIW, for reference; $46/bag + $20/bag delivered to GR,MI.

Joined: 01 Oct 2007 Posts: 962 Location: Minnesota

I’d take five bags of 7.5 or 8s.
Prefer 7.5.

FWIW, I patterned 3 loads using Heper #9 shot this AM. Comparing to my 1oz match load & 3/4 oz practice load they were very similar to Lawrence shot. I also patterned a DR16 3/4 oz load and it was a bit tighter than my practice load which uses an SG16.

Joined: 04 Mar 2019 Posts: 1844 Location: Central ND

I don't doubt that Lawrence/West Coast shot may have slipped some over the years, but since it's pretty much all I use, I have never noticed a difference in the way my targets break nor have my scores fallen off, actually they have gotten incrementally better. And actually this has nothing to do with any claims for or against any shot manufacturer. It's just something that happened while I was patterning. I don't normally pattern target loads, it's mostly 16 gauge for hunting loads only.

My go to sporting clays shotgun is a Benelli SS, made in 2007. It always has a Muller U3 choke in it but for this bit of patterning I used the Benelli Full choke which has 0.040" constriction, the Benelli Improved Modified choke with 0.033" constriction. Out of curiosity I ended up trying the Muller U3 with 0.022" constriction.

I patterned 3 targets for each choke at a measured 40 yards. August, 12, 2023, Temperature was 77 degrees, 8 mph NNW, 45% RH. Kind of a perfect day.

The load was a run of the mill, Winchester AACF hull, Winchester 209 primer, 18.0 grains 700-X, CB1100-12 wad and 1 oz. of Lawrence #8 magnum that I bought 5 or 6 weeks ago. The velocity on my chrono says 1,248 FPS. The shot count per oz. was 412, the pellet size (I checked about 50 pellets) was 0.087" to 0.094". By the chart I have the pellet count indicates about 4% antimony. Since the size averages 0.091" that seems about right. The whole load is nothing special, and I just grabbed the shells I needed out of the bin that my 9000H12 spits them into. I did weigh powder and shot to be sure it was close when I started reloading, but I did not weigh out powder and shot to be exact in each hull.

Benelli Full Choke (0.040"):

78% in a 30" circle - Central Thickening - 2.3 to 1

Benelli Improved modified choke (0.033"):

77% in a 30" circle - Central Thickening - 2.5 to 1

Muller U3 (0.022"):

78% in a 30" circle - Central Thickening - 2.4 to 1

I have only used the Full choke for POI testing. I don't think the improved modified choke has ever been in the shotgun. The Muller U3 was interesting, I have patterned that choke several times, but this is the first time I have seen 78% patterns with it, It's normally in the 60's as far as percentage goes.

The fact that all 3 chokes patterned almost the same is kind of surprising. Proof that until you pattern you are just guessing.

Back in the 1990's new factory Gold Medals shot 86% in a Citori trap gun I had with a full choke. I don't remember exactly what the Invector Plus full choke was, but somewhere around 0.030". My reloads using all Federal components, 700-X and Lawrence shot would pattern 82%, back then.

What have you folks found for patterns with Heper shot?

Mark,

The swamp yankee in me has a response to your post that might bring forth a chuckle in person, but would likely offend in print.

So, with the humblest respect, what are the units for a central thickening ratio and how do you calculate them?

Joined: 04 Mar 2019 Posts: 1844 Location: Central ND

Central thickening is the ratio of pellets between the 21" core and the 21" to 30" annullar ring. Both have similar areas. What central thickening tells you is how effective the pattern is at a certain yardage. The minimum is 1.5 core to 1 annullar. When the ratio dips below 1.5 to 1 the ratio is telling you that the effectiveness of the pattern is starting to fall off and you need to use better quality pellets, change the choke or start using buffer.....or all three depending on what you are trying to accomplish.

Citori16, your post got a smile and a laugh!!

Oh yeah, this isn't something I dreamed up, this information came from a very respected person that has tested a lot of loads for folks that visit this website....and it isn't Precision Reloading.