Mention of disc shot was made; it was known as plumbago(sp?)and commercially sold & loaded, at one time. The use of that particular name may have been to mean 'flower' or it may have been because the leadwort flowers are generally flat; I never could run the etymology down and even the spelling is open to argument w/marketing hardly being new. Remington's 'Shure Shot' ammo has caused me to misspell 'sure' much of my life. Ha! I've posted on making purposely deformed flat disc shot before, so won't repeat that, but it WILL produce wide & unpredictable patterns that deteriorate rapidly.
On cubed shot; it was the Russians who won the Olympics at International skeet some years back using specific cartridges for each station; before some rule 'refinements' were made. Their station 8 rounds were loaded w/cubed aluminum shot! More pellets within then allowable weight limit + erratic flight for a quick & close bloom. Station 8, being the position half way and in line w/the two houses, so the closest shots taken in a round or 'box' of skeet.
I've witnessed a person being struck by a pellet while shooting skeet. Shooter was on station 4. That's the outer station in the centre of the field, for those unfamiliar with the game. Only plausible explanation is that the pellet did a 180 degree turn running on the inside periphery of the target's bottom just prior to the target coming apart and it came back to hit another person on the squad. Have also been told of a similar instance where one of the shooter's lenses was broken from a pellet coming back and striking it during a registered shoot on the W coast many years ago. Had a friend who was on the squad when it happened. Just saying.
The French at one time used 'Raye' boring in some shotgun bbl.'s, ostensibly to affect an earlier pattern bloom; it was like a paradox, i.e., a bit of rifling toward the muzzle, but smooth bored behind or between the end of the forcing cone forward to where the rifling occurred. I've owned & patterned some French double guns w/that feature as well as trying the assorted 'diffusion' & rifled factory & after market chokes in several semi-auto shotguns. All of it on grease plates and when using modern hard shot w/plastic or card wads found they pretty much all produced IC type patterns! It was an eye opener for me at the time. Others have reported similar findings since.
Bit of a ramble, but its a fun subject, spreaders. And we all know that patterns open more at sea level and in the swamp than they do at higher elevations, right? :-)
Best ramble of the entire thread.
