For those who have considered the idea or rejected the idea, I strongly suggest reading Dr. A. C. Jones's book on sporting shotgun performance. Per Dr. Jones, it takes 10 patterns statistically analized to say much about any given barrel-load combination. The problem is that there is so much shot-to-shot variation that a single pattern is pretty much worthless as a predictor of barrel-load performance. Likewise, eyeball analysis is not reliable. He offers a nifty bit of software that will convert digital photos of patterns into statistical terms and values. BTW, to date, choke constriction is the only predictor of choke effect. Most of what we have read and been told has been based on far to little data.

DDA