How far will the Federal LE Flite-Control Buckshot load keep the entire pattern on the chest area of a man size LE target sillouette?
I just did a very limited test in a new stock 870P. I knew the flite-control was going to be good from all the reading I had done, so I just tested the PD132 00 against that GI 00 buckshot from Midway instead of picking a lot of different shells to test. (I know from testing turkey chokes that polishing the bore can significantly improve patterns. I polished the bore of this new gun to a very, very high polish with Flitz on a patch covered brush, driven by a drill on low speed, before it was ever fired. Whether this made any difference with buckshot, I couldn't say because I did not do before/after test.)
The gun would keep the GI stuff (all 9 pellets) on a man sized silhouette out to between 25 and 30 yds (lost one pellet at 30, groups were not uniform and several pellets weren't center mass strikes). The PD132 still had all 9 pellets on the target at 40 yds, lost one pellet at 45 yds but still generally kept 6 or so pellets in a pie-plate size group, center mass, but several inches high.
PD132 at 10 yds there was one hole, including the wad. At 15 yds there was a ragged hole, one or two pellet strikes just adjacent, with the wad impacting just right of POI and piercing cardboard backer. At 25 yds there was still a fist sized group. Very impressive, especially compared to the GI stuff.
I was considering sending this gun to Vang for forcing cone/porting work. The PD132 results would have totally eliminated that, except I found it very difficult to hold POI down to point-of-aim at ranges over 30 yds. (4" to 6" high at 35 and 40 yds). Still, using the Flite Control Wads pretty much makes the Vang Comp work a waste of money in IMO.