doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Pattern theory

Wonko, Why sugar coat your evaluation of the membership here? Just say what's on your mind man.

Oh, let them have their fun, Wonko. At least it keeps these nutters out of the bars and pubs on a Wednesday afternoon while us normal people eat hamburgers and get shitfaced with Don Ernesto and his proofreader before the ballgame.

*Don Ernesto and his proofreader after the Don just finished another book*

proofreader: Looks like a best seller, Ernie. What say we give it a quick look for typos and whatnot.

Don Ernesto: Fack that. I'm going to get drunk.

proofreader:(casts a weary eye at The Don) Hang on. Let me grab my hat.


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Go Tigers! Go Wings! Die Philadelphia with a BC twohander to the face!

I don't understand. This seems like a comment about the shape of the shot column, at a particular location in the bore. It doesn't seem like a choke comment. Maybe things happen to the contents of the shot column when they are arranged in a different way, and the force is applied in a different way to make the shot clear the muzzle at the same velocity for the same weight. Aside from advertising, there seems to be an intention for hard, plated and buffered shot. Is passing through the choke all that matters.

I don't see what was so hard to understand about that. When the wad hits the base of the shot column in firing the shot in front which has to me moved is held back by inertia. When you put the same weight of shot in a 20 ga as is in a 12 ga the column is 40% longer, put it in a 28ga & it is 75% longer. That means the shot down next to the wad have a lot more weight ahead of them to move. Trying to fire an ounce of shot from a 28ga would mean that hard premium shot, & pobably buffering as well was of far greater importance than firing an ounce from a 12ga.
No this has nothing at all to do with choke.

Well, I see only one question in the original post, calling for a "yes" or "no" answer which nobody gave. After awhile, these things morph from a survey into a conversation.

As to my patterns, Larry nailed it.



He and I have shared the topic of spreader loads several times....though never on Shotgunworld. I've had some meaningful discussions on Trapshooters, but far fewer lately since Neil Winston has been gone. Otherwise, I've shared my spreader load experiments and techniques here and on 16ga Society.

What I find most interesting about spreaders is that I can, in fact, exert some predictable control over what is otherwise a completely random event. It's that randomness in a "normal" shotgun pattern that allows for statistical analysis.
Pattern # one is a conventional load of 1 ounce of 8's fired through a conventional barrel. Patterns 2 & 3 are still 1 ounce of 8's, same powder charge and same nominal velocity. The difference is #2 utilizes a spreader insert loaded in a certain way and #3 utilizes an insert loaded differently. I'd venture I could further modify the loads to give in somewhat predictable fashion other patterns that vary in width between #1 and #2.

At that stage, don't you think the shot might behave as a solid mass rather than individual pellets, especially in a shot cup?

Another question could be, after they leave the shot cup, are the pellets still round. Maybe downrange predictability depends on the integrity of the shot after it separates from the barrel and the wad.

Mike,

Thanks for posting the pictures. This is very important to me as I shoot fixed modified chokes at sporting clays, and use spreaders for presentations that are both very close and very fast, like stupid close rabbits, which poor target setters insist are "fun". My bet would be that the pattern in the middle is with the SpredR insert totally on top of the charge, and that the right pattern is with the insert having a small layer of shot on top of it. I use them both ways, too, but usually put a layer of shot on top to keep patchiness out of the center of the pattern. On second thought, does one of them have holes in the disc on top of the insert?

SRH

Well all I was really saying was that for a given amount of shot the shorter & fatter the column the shot will be much more prone to exit the barrel "ROUND" rather than "Squashed". Still don't see what's so hard to understand abut that.
Best Shotgun advice I ever read was to decide how much shot you wanted to throw, how heavy a gun you were willing to carry & how much recoil you could tolerate.
Once you reached a reasonable compromise on those three point, select a gun with the biggest hole down the barrel which met those criteria.

Stan--When I've fooled around reloading spreaders in the past, I've use the hole technique vs layer of shot on top. It's one that Jay at Polywad recommends. Mine is a slight variation: 3 semicircles cut in the periphery of the disc with a one hole paper punch. Seems to produce an even, more open distribution and eliminates the weak center you sometimes get with a solid disc.