doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Jug Choke "hot center"

If it's going the right way.

SRH

This fellow had been a machinist in his younger days so he did the job properly. He used a set of piloted adjustable reamers taking a couple thousands off, then polishing and then patterning. True to being thorough he did ten patterns of each tube and said if he got one bad one out of the ten he would do a five extra. I can only guess he did hundreds of pattern before he was done. He did this for three sets of tubes. He only shot the "selected" shells for competition and serious practice. The rest of the time he shot reloads like the rest of us but he patterned them extensively as well. Them man was dedicated to say the least.

I've got to find that choke tube I bought. It looks like a figure eight laid sideways with two projections, one in the center top and one center bottom. The projections were designed to retard the wad, while the pattern was supposed to be a flattened oval. What the projections did was shred the wad so plastic confetti would float away and the pattern was crap to say the least.

Please, guys, read Jones. He did serious work on pattern variability. It is big. If it was small, we wouldn't need ten patterns to get statistically reasonable pattern data.

DDA

I've read Dr. Jones but do not agree with all his conclusions. One book is not the answer unless it is the Bible. I do not live and die on the patterning plate but I do think it has a real place when you are working up long range loads for specific applications like pass shooting birds. Then I do the math and determine if my load will have sufficient energy, at long range, to kill the bird. Shot on target is all that matters, if it has enough energy to penetrate and do its job.

Great long range patterns are only useful if you can use them to take your bird cleanly. Different with clay targets, which do not suffer if "wounded". One thing I learned was that I could get very useful hunting patterns by changing shot size, then changing velocity to make a load much better at long range. In short, big shot going slightly slower, works better at range than small shot starting out faster.

I agree - retained energy is just as important as pattern when bird shooting. And, yeah, slower is usally better - within reason. Most of my loads are at 1150 - 1200 fps MV.

What size bird is Brister giving that 1 Ft Lb of energy for. It seems quite obvious to me one would need more Ft Lbs for a Goose than a Quail.

+1 for 2-p. Patterning is a different issue than shot size, velocity and retained energy. You do the shot size and velocity for needed retained energy and then test for pattern. However, plan on shooting 10 patterns per load with statistical analysis if you really want to know.

DDA

Brister stated that this was a MINIMUM retained energy for effectiveness. I guess he figured that the shooter would use common sense.

My "Common Sense" tells me for a big Canada I would want as a bare minimum at least 3 Ft Lbs, preferably more. Basically this table seems worthless to me for any bird weighing in at over a pound, even a bit questionable for birds of 1 lb, unless you fill them so "Full" of shot that one pellet will find a vital spot.

No chart can take into account the angle of the shot. From taking nearly a thousand geese I can say with absolute certainty my least favorite shot is the classic Texas brain shot on geese. It is just so hard to get good penetration, to get a pellet into a vital area, for a kill which occurs quickly. A head on or side to shot is much more dependable in my experience. More geese die from wing injuries it seems, from the Texas brain shot, than from vitals being injured. And my last retriever came to hate retrieving cripple geese, with a broken wing. Seems the geese are a bit grumpy which make for a nasty retrieve. I hate when the dog gives me that shoot better look or fetch them yourself attitude.