FliteControl wads and cylinder bores

[DeadFlies]

Has anybody patterned loads that use Federal Flitecontrol wads in a shotgun with a cylinder bore?

I have read that a less restrictive choke, applying less friction on the Flitecontrol wad, allows the shot to stay in the wad longer, leading to tighter patterns. Conversely, a tight choke will strip the wad from the shot much too soon, resulting in poorer patterns.

It sounds logical, but I don’t really know. Anybody tried this? Thoughts?

Also, I’ve used Blackcloud 12ga 3” #2 for just about everything, and I’ve been very happy. Was hoping my Cylinder bore 20ga could be a serviceable upland gun with the right ammo.

 

[lemaymiami]

Hope there's a response to this thread - I'll be watching...

 

[Panzerschwein]

Yes the flite controls are made with cylinder and IC bores in mind and do best in them from my research.

 

[627PCFan]

I tested the low recoil OO buck loads in 2 Benellis at a distance of 35 yards. Skeet and IC chokes patterned the same, damn tight even at that distance. Modified opened up a bit. I stopped there.

 

[DPris]

I've tested Flitecontrol LE 00 Buck out to 40 yards through a cylinder bore.
Remained viable on a B27 silhouette, if that tells you anything.
Had other regular 00 Buck loads crapping out at half that distance.

Flitecontrol stuff is the best I've found.
Period.
Denis

 

[Jenrick]

We did extensive testing at work, let me see if I can find the pictures. Short version you are correct a CB patterns better then a choked barrel with the flite control.

-Jenrick

 

[entropy]

They are great through a cylinder bore, still as good through IC, never tried them through anything tighter; the theory make sense, though. I have only tried the 00 Buck, no other shot sizes.

 

[DeadFlies]

We did extensive testing at work, let me see if I can find the pictures. Short version you are correct a CB patterns better then a choked barrel with the flite control.

-Jenrick

Thank you for this. Hope you can find some pics. Would love to see some patterns.

Feedback so far suggests that I’ll be ok with a cyl bore.
Anybody else tried this with bird loads?

 

[Jenrick]

All right, to start with we use a Rem 870 Police Magnum with 18.5" barrels, with the standard IC choke. Our ammo is Federal Tactical #00 8 pellet buck. We found 9 pellet always threw one pellet wide, 8 doesn't have this problem. First target is 3, 5, 7, 10, and 15 yd patterns as you can see out to 10 yds they are basically one hole. Out to 10 yards you can pick which eye socket to engage into. At 15 yds we now have about a fist sized pattern.

At 25 we could take a head shot and probably not have to worry about what the backstop is.



At 35 yds we are starting to see the kind of spread people think a shotgun throws, but it's still torso sized.



At 50 yds we lost one pellet (probably off the left side of the backer), but still not much more then torso sized.


So how about the CB barrel? As the IC barrel was already throwing one hole patterns out to 10 yds, no real change there (the second hole at 10 is the wadding, it's still moving fast enough to punch cardboard). At 15 we can see a decent decrease in pattern size.



At 25 yds we have a group that's barely bigger then fist sized


Here's where it get's real impressive, 35 yds:


And 50 yds


You can see the massive reduction in pattern size that going to the CB barrel allows.

Now remember there is some art in getting good patterns out of a shotgun. The only way to know for sure with your shotgun is to test it.

-Jenrick

 

[kudu]

Jenrick, thanks for that very informative rundown on buck loads.

 

[DeadFlies]

Good stuff, Jenrick. Thanks for sharing that.
Would there be any reason to think that smaller pellets would behave any differently?

 

[Jenrick]

I'll see if have photos from our #1 buck testing. Short version is not really. Inherently the more projectiles that are in a given shell the more they bump around (even with buffer media) so the pattern will be wider. A 9 pellet #00 buck load is wider then an 8 pellet one, and so on. However at the distance we're testing for 50 yds and in, there really isn't a major difference in pattern size based on the pellet size compared to what the choke will do.

Just for general knowledge for everyone here's testing we did a while back on pretty much whatever we had laying around in the office and that I had at home.

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/hd-sd-patterning-test.768385/#post-9723809

-Jenrick

 

[DPris]

That Federal Flitecontrol stuff is just miles ahead & can double your effective buckshot range.
Denis

 

[Jenrick]

Hornady's TAP buckshot with the Versatite wad, patterns quite well from an IC barrel. We never tested it with a tighter choke so I can't speak on that. I'll see if I've got photos handy of that test too.

-Jenrick

 

[Panzerschwein]

Hornady's TAP buckshot with the Versatite wad, patterns quite well from an IC barrel. We never tested it with a tighter choke so I can't speak on that. I'll see if I've got photos handy of that test too.

-Jenrick

Their 8 pellet 00 load is intriguing. It's got a faster velocity than most and is hardened shot. Would be fun to test against cover. Runs well in my 1100, I need to pattern some.

 

[Jenrick]

It does just fine on most barriers. We tested it against the Federal Tactical round and got pretty comparable results. Short version, buck shot is horrible for punching through car doors or auto glass, it doesn't matter whether the shot is hardened or plated. The pellets have too much exposed surface area to do well with hard barriers. On auto glass it does however blow a nice big hole for follow up shots, so it's got its use there. I wanted to see what the Hornady Light Magnum round (or any equivalent full house buckshot round) did through a car door, but we didn't have the time to do it. For the other barriers spec'd in the FBI ballistic testing for pistol rounds (the shotgun test is much less inclusive, so we went the extra mile to do a full profile test) the Hornady and Federal round did just fine.

We actually went to the Hornady TAP round, but that was mainly an issue with the Federal rounds buffer media locking up the trigger groups in our patrol shotguns. That was a case of the shotgun mounts and the rounds not agree'ing with each other. The Hornady's performance out of the IC choke barrels we use was excellent, and as I mentioned above penetration wise it does the same thing as Federal round did for all practical purposes. Since it didn't have buffer media to lock up the trigger groups, it was a no brainer to switch.

-Jenrick

 

[Riomouse911]

Jenrick, I will guess that the buffer media was leaking out of the crimps as the gun rattled about in the shotgun rack? I know that Winchester buckshot has a pretty solid crimp so media doesn't spill out, is the Federal crimp less secure?

 

[Jenrick]

That is correct. Also there was no overshot wad card, so it was free to leak as soon as the crimp opened up. We went from horizontal mounts, to vertical. So the bottom shell, every time the car took a bump, the column of shells would drop back down. Right on top of the bottom shell, mashing the crimp open. I'm not sure anything other then a solid brass shell would have held up honestly.

-Jenrick