Sergeant Sabre
Member
Ammunition tested
Remington Express 2 3/4" 9-pellet 00 buckshot
Winchester Super-X 2 3/4" 9-pellet 00 buckshot
Winchester Super-X 2 3/4" 1oz. foster slug
Shotgun
Mossberg 500. Tested with 18.5" cylinder-bore barrel, and 20" accu-choke barrel w/ modified tube installed
The Target
I used a cardboard backer and a witness sheet made out of two 8.5" x 11" pieces of printer paper taped together. The whole witness sheet you will see in the pictures is therefore 11" wide, and about 16" tall.
Methodology
Load shotgun, shoot target, observe results. You really don't know how to do this? You actually need a section of my report to tell you about it?
The Pictures
The Test Subjects
The Remington stuff I picked up super-cheap at a local store. I bought a bunch of it and needed to get out and see how it patterned. The slugs I've had on hand for a while. I bought them for deer hunting and took a doe with them. They shot into about an 8" group at 100yds with a scope, but if I ever need to use them for more "serious" work, I'll need to know how the shoot with just a bead.
Winchester 2 3/4" 9-pellet 00 buck, cylinder-bore, 15 yards
This is a load I picked up cheap at a local big-box store. It's buffered, but unplated shot. About 11" across, both in height and width. Not bad. Let's see how it reacts to the modified choke.
Winchester 2 3/4" 9-pellet 00 buck, modified choke, 15 yards
Tightened 'er up a little bit. A fair pattern, I suppose. I didn't measure, but it looks about 10" in height and 7" or 8" in width. On to the Remington offering.
Remington Express 2 3/4" 9-pellet 00 buck, cylinder-bore, 15 yards
This load is also buffered, but unplated. It contains a full-length shot cup, however. This prevents the pellets from scraping down the bore as they are fired, hopefully reducing deformation. I don't see that making a difference in this pattern, though. As you can see two pellets impacted off the witness sheet to the right. Not impressive at all.
Maybe the shot cup will allow this load to react well to a choke?
Remington Express 2 3/4" 9-pellet 00 buck, modified choke, 15 yards
Apparently so! That's a pretty big improvement. An even pattern, about 8" in both directions. Nice. I'd like to shoot this load at a bit longer range, so let's back it up some.
Remington Express 2 3/4" 9-pellet 00 buck, modified choke, 25 yards
Not what I'd hoped for. The remaining three pellets impacted off to the right a few inches. Overall about a 18" pattern. Not dismal for 25 yards, but not real good either. Those three flyers sure impacted quite a distance from the bulk of the pattern, too. Perhaps they were deformed when they impacted the choke?
So, max range for this load is going to be somewhere around 20 yards. Further than that, and a slug would be a wise choice. Speaking of that...
Winchester Super-X 2 3/4" 1oz foster slug, modified choke, 25yds
Now we're mostly checking out my ability to hit stuff with just a bead, rather than the slug performance. I sure won't complain about that placement, though. I wonder how I would do further back. Maybe at 35 yards?
Winchester Super-X 2 3/4" 1oz foster slug, modified choke, 35yds
I won't cry about that at all. I was pleasantly surprised at that second shot. Now we'll run back to 50yds and see how it goes.
50 yards
Sure looks like a long ways, huh? I guess it is, in terms of a defensive shooting.
I'll pre-empt the question about the mid-bead: I don't like it. The sight picture seems cluttered and I wish this barrel had a single brass bead. I tried to remove the mid-bead but I didn't have a socket small enough. I'll live with it for now, but I want the front bead removed, and the mid-bead moved to the front. Anyway, let's shoot.
That's the slug impact in the upper-right. Not what I was hoping for, but at least I hit the cardboard. I feel like I pulled the shot though, so let's throw two more and see what we come up with.
I didn't feel like I pulled these two, but came up with about the same placement anyway. I guess that's roughly minute-of-bad-guy. Maybe a little wide to the right and a bit high.
I'm pretty happy with the group size, considering that I rapped the second two off in pretty rapid succession. I suspect that the mid-bead's cluttered sight picture is throwing me off to the right somehow. For now though, I'll just have to remember that this set-up puts slugs high and a little right.
Conclusion
Shooting stuff still does not suck. Not even a little bit. I should do it more often, and so should you. Also, I was rather surprised by my ability to hit using slugs and just a bead (two beads, actually
). It's also very eye-opening to see how quickly buckshot spreads out and loses it's effectiveness. 25yds didn't look that far, but I'd be very hard-pressed to put all of the pellets from either of these loads into a bad guy. It would be impossible to get more than a few into the comparatively small vital zone.
I wonder where I can get Flite-Control loads locally...
Remington Express 2 3/4" 9-pellet 00 buckshot
Winchester Super-X 2 3/4" 9-pellet 00 buckshot
Winchester Super-X 2 3/4" 1oz. foster slug
Shotgun
Mossberg 500. Tested with 18.5" cylinder-bore barrel, and 20" accu-choke barrel w/ modified tube installed
The Target
I used a cardboard backer and a witness sheet made out of two 8.5" x 11" pieces of printer paper taped together. The whole witness sheet you will see in the pictures is therefore 11" wide, and about 16" tall.
Methodology
Load shotgun, shoot target, observe results. You really don't know how to do this? You actually need a section of my report to tell you about it?
The Pictures
The Test Subjects
The Remington stuff I picked up super-cheap at a local store. I bought a bunch of it and needed to get out and see how it patterned. The slugs I've had on hand for a while. I bought them for deer hunting and took a doe with them. They shot into about an 8" group at 100yds with a scope, but if I ever need to use them for more "serious" work, I'll need to know how the shoot with just a bead.
Winchester 2 3/4" 9-pellet 00 buck, cylinder-bore, 15 yards
This is a load I picked up cheap at a local big-box store. It's buffered, but unplated shot. About 11" across, both in height and width. Not bad. Let's see how it reacts to the modified choke.
Winchester 2 3/4" 9-pellet 00 buck, modified choke, 15 yards
Tightened 'er up a little bit. A fair pattern, I suppose. I didn't measure, but it looks about 10" in height and 7" or 8" in width. On to the Remington offering.
Remington Express 2 3/4" 9-pellet 00 buck, cylinder-bore, 15 yards
This load is also buffered, but unplated. It contains a full-length shot cup, however. This prevents the pellets from scraping down the bore as they are fired, hopefully reducing deformation. I don't see that making a difference in this pattern, though. As you can see two pellets impacted off the witness sheet to the right. Not impressive at all.
Maybe the shot cup will allow this load to react well to a choke?
Remington Express 2 3/4" 9-pellet 00 buck, modified choke, 15 yards
Apparently so! That's a pretty big improvement. An even pattern, about 8" in both directions. Nice. I'd like to shoot this load at a bit longer range, so let's back it up some.
Remington Express 2 3/4" 9-pellet 00 buck, modified choke, 25 yards
Not what I'd hoped for. The remaining three pellets impacted off to the right a few inches. Overall about a 18" pattern. Not dismal for 25 yards, but not real good either. Those three flyers sure impacted quite a distance from the bulk of the pattern, too. Perhaps they were deformed when they impacted the choke?
So, max range for this load is going to be somewhere around 20 yards. Further than that, and a slug would be a wise choice. Speaking of that...
Winchester Super-X 2 3/4" 1oz foster slug, modified choke, 25yds
Now we're mostly checking out my ability to hit stuff with just a bead, rather than the slug performance. I sure won't complain about that placement, though. I wonder how I would do further back. Maybe at 35 yards?
Winchester Super-X 2 3/4" 1oz foster slug, modified choke, 35yds
I won't cry about that at all. I was pleasantly surprised at that second shot. Now we'll run back to 50yds and see how it goes.
50 yards
Sure looks like a long ways, huh? I guess it is, in terms of a defensive shooting.
I'll pre-empt the question about the mid-bead: I don't like it. The sight picture seems cluttered and I wish this barrel had a single brass bead. I tried to remove the mid-bead but I didn't have a socket small enough. I'll live with it for now, but I want the front bead removed, and the mid-bead moved to the front. Anyway, let's shoot.
That's the slug impact in the upper-right. Not what I was hoping for, but at least I hit the cardboard. I feel like I pulled the shot though, so let's throw two more and see what we come up with.
I didn't feel like I pulled these two, but came up with about the same placement anyway. I guess that's roughly minute-of-bad-guy. Maybe a little wide to the right and a bit high.
I'm pretty happy with the group size, considering that I rapped the second two off in pretty rapid succession. I suspect that the mid-bead's cluttered sight picture is throwing me off to the right somehow. For now though, I'll just have to remember that this set-up puts slugs high and a little right.
Conclusion
Shooting stuff still does not suck. Not even a little bit. I should do it more often, and so should you. Also, I was rather surprised by my ability to hit using slugs and just a bead (two beads, actually
). It's also very eye-opening to see how quickly buckshot spreads out and loses it's effectiveness. 25yds didn't look that far, but I'd be very hard-pressed to put all of the pellets from either of these loads into a bad guy. It would be impossible to get more than a few into the comparatively small vital zone.I wonder where I can get Flite-Control loads locally...
