Larry, you can know what % of unbroken targets had what number of hits. However, that tells you nothing as to what % of broken targets broke from how many hits. I've been watching some pretty good skeet shooters and there are a considerable number of two/three/four piece targets. If you look at Dr. J's work, you can see a lot of similarity to barely broken targets on the field. I think Winston and Jones will have some good data on this in the near future.
Actually, Rman, you can't "know" what % of unbroken targets had what number of hits. Well, maybe you could right now, in my neck of the woods in northern WI, because we have a few inches of fluffy snow on the ground, thus cushioning the impact when a target lands. But if we're talking bare ground, some targets not broken by the shot will break when they land, especially if the ground is hard. All we know, from picking up unbroken targets with hits, is that it's not at all unusual to find targets with a single hole that didn't break, and not really rare to find targets with 2 holes. All of which, in the minds of many of us who've looked at enough unbroken targets, is sufficient to cause us to be skeptics when someone tells us that a lot of targets (what %?) break as a result of a single pellet strike. If Dr. Jones can show us the evidence (which would pretty much have to be photographic, not compiled via computer and pattern analysis) that X% of targets hit with a single pellet will break, then he'll have more believers.
