I recently took my 20" M500 out of retirement, and took it to the indoor range to see what my ammo would do. All I had were several boxes of Federal Premium 9 pellet 00 from some years ago. Extreme maximum distance in my house is 9 yards, I patterned at 10.
With IC choke, the patterns were about 10 inches or so, and reasonably well dispersed. With full choke, they were about half that size. But all patterns were about 6 to 8 inches above the POA. I went into the shop and bought the only other suitable buckshot loads they had, two boxes of Federal "Power Shok" 00, a low recoil 9 pellet load at 3 dram EQ (H132 00).
The POI with the new load was just slightly above my POA, not enough to matter for my purpose, and much tighter than the gold box load: about 5 inches with IC. Switching to full choke with the low recoil ammo didn't really tighten the patterns noticeably. (Some Winchester SuperX I fiddled with years ago also wasn't impressed with the full choke.)
The low recoil loads didn't disperse quite as evenly as the Premium label. There were a couple pellets in each pattern that landed pretty much right on top of each other, but overall I felt the coverage was "pretty good", and the proper POA/POI performance was more important to me. For now, I've adopted the H132 as my HD load. I didn't really notice all that much recoil reduction, btw, but I wasn't really paying attention to that, either.
What I don't understand is why the lower velocity load printed so much lower than the faster stuff. That's contradictory to what I expected, given that the muzzle should be higher in it's recoil arc by the time the slower package exits the barrel...? Just a matter of my shotgun's particular personality, maybe?
Anyway, even though it was only two loads (for now), it was still a very educational experience.
I feel much more in tune with what my shotgun will do in it's intended role.
With IC choke, the patterns were about 10 inches or so, and reasonably well dispersed. With full choke, they were about half that size. But all patterns were about 6 to 8 inches above the POA. I went into the shop and bought the only other suitable buckshot loads they had, two boxes of Federal "Power Shok" 00, a low recoil 9 pellet load at 3 dram EQ (H132 00).
The POI with the new load was just slightly above my POA, not enough to matter for my purpose, and much tighter than the gold box load: about 5 inches with IC. Switching to full choke with the low recoil ammo didn't really tighten the patterns noticeably. (Some Winchester SuperX I fiddled with years ago also wasn't impressed with the full choke.)
The low recoil loads didn't disperse quite as evenly as the Premium label. There were a couple pellets in each pattern that landed pretty much right on top of each other, but overall I felt the coverage was "pretty good", and the proper POA/POI performance was more important to me. For now, I've adopted the H132 as my HD load. I didn't really notice all that much recoil reduction, btw, but I wasn't really paying attention to that, either.
What I don't understand is why the lower velocity load printed so much lower than the faster stuff. That's contradictory to what I expected, given that the muzzle should be higher in it's recoil arc by the time the slower package exits the barrel...? Just a matter of my shotgun's particular personality, maybe?
Anyway, even though it was only two loads (for now), it was still a very educational experience.
I feel much more in tune with what my shotgun will do in it's intended role.
