doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Spreader load recipes - 12 ga. 1 oz.

Good stuff Mike.
The 1/8oz on top is a real winner.

Thanks Mike - all excellent and helpful points to keep in mind. The intended use here is sporting clays. The gun in question currently patterns my reloads at 91% at 30 yds (R) and 84% at 40 yds (L). Based on the principles you discuss, I am concerned that the Polywad insert may not produce a pattern that would still be useful at longer ranges (30+ yards) - though the only way to confirm that is to load and pattern.

Doverham,

Another option from Ballistic Products is the PISK (Piston Skeet) wad. It's not a spreader but it does move some of the shot from the center of the pattern to the periphery thus increasing the effectiveness of the pattern at close to moderate ranges.

I've loaded a lot of these in AA & STS hulls using 1oz & Clays or 700X as per the BP manual. They do seem to help with tightly choked guns for sporting clays & they don't add any steps to the loading process which is important to me for volume loading. I have no data in any of my manuals for American Select with this wad.

As previously mentioned you won't know w/o patterning & the distribution of shot within the pattern at a given yardage needs to be considered just as much as pattern percentage.

I don't think you will get good 30 yard results out of the Polywad. Might with load development, likely to be more trouble than it's worth. load mine with 7 1/2 for Rabbit targets, one course I shoot throws a true pair Rabbit off the same arm from a manual trap. 2nd shot at least 30 yards. Use the Polywad right barrel regular shell left.

Something we have not mentioned is shot size. If I was going to shoot skeet with one of my tight choked guns would make up spreaders with # 9. Compensate for pattern holes with more pellets. Would also be useful for very close sporting targets. Close to the trap dont need large shot or many pellets to break one. For me another load would make shell selection to complicated, loose target focus.

I sent some loads to Precision Reloading for testing and thought I would share the results.
Win AA Hulls + Win 209 Primer + BPI Brush Wad + 1 oz 7.5s + overshot card. The five shot averages follow:

18.5 grains AmSel = 1242 fps/9680 psi (extreme variation of 23 fps and 1360 psi)
20.5 grains AmSel = 1317 fps/11,024 psi (extreme variation of 39 fps and 1260 psi; close but not exceeding SAAMI MAP)
22 grains AmSel = exceeded SAAMI MAP (11,500)

I also tested one set with Rem 209P primers, with the following results:
19.5 grains AmSel = 1262 fps/8980 psi (extreme variation of 31 fps and 1570 psi)

Based on this, I think the set with the Rem 209P primers and 19.5 gr. AmSel is what I will try patterning. I will post those results when I find some time to get to the patterning board.