Is it the same for the HD users or is it perceived as the wider the better, as in less chance to miss under stress?
There are about as many opinions regarding buckshot patterns as there are shotgun shooters. Maybe more: D.
I think everyone should work to get whatever kind of pattern they want, for the particular purpose or purposes they have in mind. Open, medium or tight, whatever a person's preference is, for whatever reason, they should look for the combination of internal barrel geometry and buckshot load that produces what they want as reliably as possible.
Choke is indeed one factor, but there are many, many more. An extended, polished forcing cone seems to help a lot to improve shotgun patterns with larger shot, in my experience and that of Dave McC, our esteemed late moderator here. Hans Vang made his name decades ago by overboring short open choked riot gun barrels and leaving in a few points of choke as original barrel diameter at the muzzle. Sometimes he put in ports too, but I don't think those helped with patterns. My gunsmith when I was a kid, Ralph Walker of Selma, AL, experimented a lot with what was called 'jug choking' (opening up the bore of a CYL bore barrel behind the muzzle for a short distance) and was an early adopter of choke tubes. A tight choke, however, will not necessarily guarantee tight patterns - often enough, the opposite is true as an overly tight choke will distort pellets as they pass through it, inducing spread.
In my experience the load matters a lot. A major factor in inducing spread in a buckshot pattern is pellets that get out of round in their trip down the bore. Some of them come out looking positively faceted, especially pellets made of dead soft lead with no hardening alloys added, or no plating with harder metals like copper or nickel. Lack of buffering (grex), lack of a protective shot collar or wad cup, and lack of a cushioning wad column to ease the blow of firing also are factors in avoiding pellet deformation in the short trip down the bore.
So - want open patterns? Shoot the inexpensive stuff with soft lead pellets and little or no pellet protection - Rio Royal, S&B etc.
Want medium patterns? Try any of the major manufacturer's standard buckshot loads - Federal, Remington, Fiocchi, Winchester etc.
Want tight patterns? Look for a "premium" load, preferably one with a FliteControl wad (see
http://www.federalpremium.com/education/flitecontrol.aspx for more info). Premium loads are likely to have hard lead alloy pellets, plated with a harder metal like copper, protected with granulated plastic, shot cups or collars, and good, shock absorbing wad columns.
All the factors above are
likely to influence patterns as described - but there are no guarantees. Shotgun patterns are as much magic as science sometimes, it seems. A dedicated shooter will try a variety of loads, chokes, barrels etc. to get what he or she wants out of a shotgun as far as patterns are concerned. And the only way to really tell, is at the patterning board.
See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pIuUrjUIyQ#t=472
As far as using pattern spread to make up for lack of shooter ability ... well, it's always seemed to me that hitting was the SHOOTER'S responsibility, not the shotgun's. I often say that there are no hardware solutions to software problems. Others may disagree with that idea, as is their prerogative. I am a firm believer in taking advantage of the training that is widely available these days, from a number of well qualified professional instructors. That seems to be another point of contention with a lot of shooters as well.
Can't wait to see how it patterns out of my shotgun! Does any of you have any experience with those? Did they perform well? Did they spread a lot?
