Is There a STANDARD?

[BOBinIN]

I've been doing a lot of reading lately about Turkey hunting (season opens next Wednesday) and I have a question that perhaps you can answer...
In rifles the accepted "standard" for accuracy is one MOA, which translates into 1" groups at 100 yards. Is there a "standard" for shotguns? It seems no two shooters use the same yardage, circle size or percentage of shot within the circle. It's very confusing trying to compare data sets when no two variables are the same. Thanks for any responses, BOBinIN

[Blue-Dot-37.5]

Well, Yes and No. The "standard" that I use is a 30" circle, with a 20" circle in the center. Total pellets in the 30" circle is % of pattern, the inner 20" is the "core" density. The standard distance used to be 40 Yds., but that really should be at the distance that you expect the bird to be shot at. It's no use to pattern a skeet choke @ 40 Yds when most of the birds should be shot at 21 Yds. I try to see an even dispersion of pellets between the outer ring and the inner ring, with no empty spots that a bird could slip thru. I used to shoot a lot of clay "games" where the birds were a long ways away, so I checked my pattern @ 60 Yds. I disagree with the method that the NRA uses for their testing, I believe that with the randomness of the pellets it's pointless to divide the inner circle up into quarters, and it's pointless to pattern an open choke @ 40 Yds. I'm putting my firesuit on now!

There is a standard # of pellets that is supposed to be within that circle for a given choke, that is expressed as a % of the total pellets. But, you have to know how many pellets are in your load to get that %.

Blue-Dot-37.5

[snipehunter]

The 30" circle that Blue Dot mentioned is the "standard". It's what every shooter I know uses. So does every gun manufacturer and every cartridge manufacturer. It is a constant and in order for you to be able to compare numbers against an industry standard there must be one. With the exception of the 410 the "standard" distance is also consistent. For it the standard is 25 yards. There should be no other variables so I'm not sure where the confusion comes from. The only thing that changes is percentage of the pattern that falls within the 30" circle, and that is a function of each barrel's effective choke. As Blue Dot also mentioned that "standard" 40 yards doesn't necessarily provide you with the most useful information for your circumstances. I believe knowing that is at least as important if not more than knowing how your gun is choked based on standard patterning procedure. For example, with a small bird I want to know what range my pattern becomes too thin to be effective. At whatever yardage that happens to be the options are either to increase payload or decrease shot size to increase pattern density. If neither of those can be done you have found the maximum range for that gun/load combination. The two most boring things to do are counting pellet holes in a pattern board and cutting open shells to get a pellet count.

SH

[Blue-Dot-37.5]

SH:

I agree, counting all those holes is a pain! A really BIG pain!

The other thing to remember is you don't draw a circle on the paper, step back and shoot at the circle. You shoot the paper first, then circle the densest part of the pattern. You use an aiming point on the paper to shoot at, but more often than not, the majority of the pellets are not distributed evenly around the aiming point. I went so far as to make a plexiglass "donut" 30" O.D. with a 20" center hole so I could see the pattern and adjust the circle accordingly.

It all boils down to shooter preference. Trap shooters shoot at rising bird, so they want to "float" the bird over the barrel and center it. So trap barrels may be expressed as 60/40 or 70/30. The larger # is the % of pellets in that circle that is above the aiming point. Most skeet, sporting clays shooters and hunters favor a flat shooting gun, where the pattern is 50/50.

You can't just shoot one shot for each load either.... It's recommended to shoot 10 shots, although I cheated when I was doing all my patterning and only shot 5 shots. I still ended up shooting over 1,000 shots! Myself and a buddy, a couple of rolls of 40" wide newsprint paper, and a home made target stand so I could roll the target from one paper roll to another without having to cut/staple all the targets. One of us hid behind the trap house, and rolled the paper. It still took the better part of a summer to finish all the patterning!

Some general trends that I noticed are:
1. Some guns like certain sizes of shot and hate others.
2. Just changing the wad could drastically change the pattern.
3. Harder, rounder shot is much better for dense patterns over 30 yds away, inside that reclaimed shot or chilled shot works almost as well.
4. Plated shot is not always better.
5. Finding the proper buffer for long range shooting is important!
6. Buffers are NOT interchangeable (types & mfgs)
7. Green Dot powder throws denser core densities than other comparable powders if the only component changed is the powder (consult the loading manuals!)
8. Just because XYZ load works great in my Remington 1100, it doesn't guarantee that it will work just as great in yours, even if the guns are virtually identical
9. Smaller shot will spread out quicker than larger shot, if shot from the same barrel/choke at the same MV.
10. Larger shot payloads and shot sizes won't always pattern the "tightest" with the tightest chokes. (I saw denser patterns shooting a .035" constriction choke with 1 3/8 oz of buffered 6's than with a full or x-full choke)

Blue-Dot-37.5