Winston is under the influence of Dr. A.C. Jones, the worst nemisis that faith based chokesmiths encounter. Dr. Jones, is the AntiEyster.
There are times I believe Dr. Jones is correct, and there is no salvation or escape from normal distribution of pellets in the circle.
But then, why do spreader loads work?
Has all the treasure and labor spent on harder, rounder shot protected from deformation in forcing cone and choke, been wasted?
Why do the makers of card shooting (turkey shoot) guns tend to gain and keep their reputations by repeated wins of their guns at contests?
Was Bob Eyster, just a shyster?
And why did all the gun scribes from Greener to Brister believe that choking was both art and science?
I almost believe Jones is right.
There are advantages to a purely normal distribution of all patterns.
For one thing, you could shoot all patterns at ten yards, measure the circles, and be done with patterning.
That is where to start patterning. A full choke pattern is close to five inches, maybe six, at ten yards. A cylinder bore pattern at ten yards is about fifteen inches, maybe a bit more. All the other chokes will print circles between five and fifteen inches.
Then, its fun to start stepping back to twenty, thirty, forty, yards and further, to see how even they are, how quickly they spread, if they have hot cores, or excessive shot balling, or fliers.
If Dr. Jones is right, patterning shotguns beyond ten yards is just purely chasing moonbeams.
Theres no fun, in that.
Wed rather pretend we are searching for grails.
