nitesite
Member
Well, I made it to 1,000 posts on THR. So here's a personal experience that I'll pass along for my grand post. 
One of my home defense guns is a 12-ga 20" Mossberg 590 8+1 with ghost ring sights. It has a cylinder bore choke.
A couple of years ago I had a frustrating experience trying to shoot coyotes around my property while cutting hay. The yotes were holding off around 50-60 yards away from the tractor, catching mice that were scurrying around in the newly-mowed field. I got off four shots at two coyotes that evening (during 30-minutes) with that shotgun, using conventional Winchester Super-X 00-buckshot. In both instances, when the tractor stopped the songdog stood motionless and looked right at me. I fired twice each time, the second of two shots at running 'yotes.
Each time, the spread of pellets from my cylinder-bored barrel at 60-yards was huge. I estimate the width at around 6-9 feet. One dog escaped totally unscathed, while I did hit the other with two pellets. I know this because I discovered the body the next morning and found the bloody entrance holes. They must have struck home on the broadside (2nd) shot. It was not a humane or clean kill and I felt remorseful for the animal's suffering.
If you can imagine nine pellets occupying a 6-9 foot circle it's probably easy to see how a stationary animal the size of a 40-lb dog, looking right at me, could escape being hit. And yeah, I should have had my AR-15 that evening. But I didn't.
Anyhow, I started keeping my 590 for defense around my property with two rounds of buck followed by five slugs. It seemed to me that if I had to shoot at a marauding wild dog that endangers my pets the buckshot would likely be a problem if my dogs were tangling in close with it and I was not very close. Shucking out the first two would bring slugs to bear and minimize the chance for striking my pets accidentally.
ENTER the Federal VitalShok Premium 00 Buckshot round with Flite-Control wad. It's the answer to my prayers when it comes to extending the range of buckshot while keeping the pattern really, really tight even a long ranges.
The secret is in the wad, which doesn't have petals on the front that open up within a few feet of the muzzle, thereby initiating an expanding pattern very early on. The wad was developed for turkey hunting and it works by having drag brakes on the rear which pulls the wad away from the shot column after first travelling several yards instead of a few feet.
The improvement is phenominal. Now a 9-pellet 00 buckshot round has a 25-yd pattern that looks like this...
and at longer ranges the outcome is nothing short of remarkable for buckshot. Even a cylinder bore barrel is not handicapped at longer distances!
Best regards to all of you, and Merry Christmas!
One of my home defense guns is a 12-ga 20" Mossberg 590 8+1 with ghost ring sights. It has a cylinder bore choke.
A couple of years ago I had a frustrating experience trying to shoot coyotes around my property while cutting hay. The yotes were holding off around 50-60 yards away from the tractor, catching mice that were scurrying around in the newly-mowed field. I got off four shots at two coyotes that evening (during 30-minutes) with that shotgun, using conventional Winchester Super-X 00-buckshot. In both instances, when the tractor stopped the songdog stood motionless and looked right at me. I fired twice each time, the second of two shots at running 'yotes.
Each time, the spread of pellets from my cylinder-bored barrel at 60-yards was huge. I estimate the width at around 6-9 feet. One dog escaped totally unscathed, while I did hit the other with two pellets. I know this because I discovered the body the next morning and found the bloody entrance holes. They must have struck home on the broadside (2nd) shot. It was not a humane or clean kill and I felt remorseful for the animal's suffering.
If you can imagine nine pellets occupying a 6-9 foot circle it's probably easy to see how a stationary animal the size of a 40-lb dog, looking right at me, could escape being hit. And yeah, I should have had my AR-15 that evening. But I didn't.
Anyhow, I started keeping my 590 for defense around my property with two rounds of buck followed by five slugs. It seemed to me that if I had to shoot at a marauding wild dog that endangers my pets the buckshot would likely be a problem if my dogs were tangling in close with it and I was not very close. Shucking out the first two would bring slugs to bear and minimize the chance for striking my pets accidentally.
ENTER the Federal VitalShok Premium 00 Buckshot round with Flite-Control wad. It's the answer to my prayers when it comes to extending the range of buckshot while keeping the pattern really, really tight even a long ranges.
The secret is in the wad, which doesn't have petals on the front that open up within a few feet of the muzzle, thereby initiating an expanding pattern very early on. The wad was developed for turkey hunting and it works by having drag brakes on the rear which pulls the wad away from the shot column after first travelling several yards instead of a few feet.
The improvement is phenominal. Now a 9-pellet 00 buckshot round has a 25-yd pattern that looks like this...
and at longer ranges the outcome is nothing short of remarkable for buckshot. Even a cylinder bore barrel is not handicapped at longer distances!
Best regards to all of you, and Merry Christmas!
