Let me ask you a question, Miller. If it's "just a simple tube", as you said, can you explain why barrels made exactly the same, as near as man can make them the same, don't always pattern the same? I can assure you they don't, based on many years of patterning. There are generalities that can be "assumed" when assigning loads to barrel/choke combinations, but there are those individuals that do not follow the "rules". Why?
The easy answer is that they're not really the same, but are different. And, if they really are different, can one make assumptions that a simple tube with a certain bore and constriction will perform a certain way? A "certain way" meaning according to the median for that bore/constriction.
SRH
Stan;
All good & valid points & no I cannot explain all the little variations you mention, nor can anyone as far as I know. I will further add that we don't have to go so far as comparing different barrels to note these effects. Different loads, different sizes of shot & even different shells from the same loading will not give identical patterns. In speaking on this line we are always speaking of Averages.
I will thus ask one question of you. Do you have enough evidence to be statistically significant that a 28 gauge bore is less sensitive to these changes than any other size? If so I would certainly be interested in seeing it. Also, I would like to know how much variation from that .550" bore can be tolerated without losing the effect. Would a .560" or a .540" bore follow the same rule as a .550" one?
It is not truly necessary to be able to explain every variation, but the odds can be explained. Odds are likely at least 90:1 that a 28 will shoot like a 28, not like a 12.
It is also necessary to keep in mind that what one person calls a "Better" pattern another would find undesirable.
My ideal pattern would be one that if you patterned it on a 16-field pattern every field would have exactly the same number of pellets in them. This, of course, is not going to happen, but the closer to it the better in my opinion. Odds are that within reason of practicality the larger the hole a given shot load is fired through the more likely it is to have a more uniform pattern.
