doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Tight chokes, spreader loads and clays

Thanks, Jim. It's all good fun.

Well, I tried Rob Harris' suggestion for layering with the Polywad insert and I have to say I'm impressed. It seems to combine the best features of Polywad and X-stream inserts. Polywad has given me the widest dispersion but with patchiness and sparse centers I find unacceptable. X-stream gives me the most even dispersion but relatively little additional width. I shot 4 patterns with each of the 2 recipes. The 4 with the bi-layer recipe were indistinguishable. Three of the 4 with the disc on top had large voids I've come to expect; I chose the one with the most circular void 'cause it was easy to illustrate.



I'm reminded that back in the 30's the best patterning ammo was roll-crimped with a disc on top. The "scatter loads" of the day were concocted with multiple layers of discs and shot. While the disc-on-top result quadruples my coverage, it does less for my confidence than the layered load. This layering technique opens the door to a lot of tinkering for handloaders so inclined. Thanks, Rob!

Are you fellows using the perforated Polywad inserts or the solid ones? Polywad sells both types.

Glad to be of help, Mike, and 'Thank You' for providing the pictures to prove it.

A shooting friend and I started playing with this separation of the shot column some years back when looking to improve upon the core-patchiness thrown by the Poly-T device. I have stayed with the 1/8th oz. amount since it pretty much affords a uniform layer of shot to a depth of just one pellet in the 12 and 16 gauges. I suppose a guy could try more volume of shot in the top layer but I didn't know if the jostling effect within those pellets upon (ignition)setback would start to degrade the pattern. Probably something I should have looked at, but I was getting such good results with the 1/8 oz. shot cap that I left it at that.



Mark,

I've been using the solid disc rather than the three-hole as I think the solid platform driving the 1/8 oz. may be a plus for performance. I've patterned the three-hole devices in the past on their own, and feel that they didn't do as well as this separation of the shot column I described earlier. You might prove me wrong on that, but that was my take on things after some time at the plate.

For clays (and especially game), I think it's worth the extra time when loading the Poly-T.


All Best,


Rob