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Joined: 06 Mar 2008 Posts: 596 Location: 17603

Mark,
I must confess that my "patterning" only occurs on moving claybirds. And lately I've been loading lighter and lighter shot payloads that, at least on the books, are well over 1300fps. Eg. 7/8 oz in 12ga over 22gr of GreenDot in the 12ga.
With speed, to answer your question, don't forget that the shot cloud simply has less time to open up. And with shorter shot columns, I think you end up with that nearly indefinable short shot string. This will never show up on paper,
but the cloud of dust that ensues from a high velocity 3/4oz payload of 8 1/2's in the 20ga speaks well for its effectiveness.
Cheers,
Rich

Guest

Hi Russ,

I was referring to loads that are exactly the same except for an increase in powder charge, not a different payload. And I have only seen it happen less than 15% of the time. Most of the time the pattern will open up with velocity increases, and normally only 5% or so. No big deal.

I have tried the lighter load path also, and with my 16's and 12's, I only had my averages increase, when I went from 1 1/8oz to 1 oz. Anything less than an ounce of shot did not help. It was a 1.5% increase in my average, mostly getting rid of the recoil I believe. The trend in patterns with the lighter loads is a tighter pattern, but when you look at the working core of the pattern there really isn't a huge difference in pellet count, just percentage. Once you get to 35 yards, the light loads give up, and the heavier payloads take over. It is sort of like this, a twenty gauge isn't as good as a 16 gauge which isn't as good as a 12 gauge which, etc.

Shot string really doesn't come into play until you make the 35 or so yard mark. That was something I read from Ed Lowry. By that time the air is working those round pellets pretty hard and shoving them to the rear and to the outside of the shot charge. Don't know much about it to be honest, It is kinda hard to see or measure.

Member Joined: 16 Nov 2006 Posts: 1338

Guest

LOL, just my trap and skeet shooting averages, which are woefully,just average.

Member Joined: 16 Nov 2006 Posts: 1338

Guest

Hi Mike

While all this testing stuff is fun, and trying new loads is a blast, but when it comes right down to it, I don't want chippy hits on clays and I don't want my dogs chasing crippled roosters. It is the responsibility of all hunters to KILL birds not just take them out of the air, while trying experiments just to be different.

So I do pattern, then watch my scores and hits when breaking clays and keep track of how the birds are hit when hunting after I change loads. I am lucky enough to hunt and break clays on a regular basis so that my results are real, not imagined after making a few difficult shots here and there.