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21 - 40 of 112 Posts
I agree with this in regards to clay targets. It’s best to shoot some clays and figure out your performance that way.

Hunting loads though, I think should be patterned on paper. I recently patterned some hunting shells that did well with .015 of choke and patterned like garbage with .025 of choke. Soft shot, as it turned out. Paper is cheap and it’s a good idea to try some patterns before a hunting trip.
Absolutely agree about hunting loads, especially larger shot. The smaller gauges can have even more variation. There have been a bazillion patterns shot with all kinds of target ammo and known chokes and you're right - 0.015" will pattern the same in any gun.
 
I don't disagree with what you're saying. Ken Eyster was widely recognized as being an expert regarding shotguns, their performance, etc. There was a time when some ads for used shotguns referred to the gun being "Eyster ported". Maybe even still - I don't know. I'm sure Ken had his reasons for testing shotguns by shooting into a pond rather than at a patterning board.
I have shot at a decoy floating on Eyster's pond but fail to see how a shot string could be viewed, especially over the distances involved. Hmmm.
Such interest in shotstring was never involved in my times there for barrel work.
Regardless tho, Ken was quite the fella and I would take his view on all things scattergun barrel......a lot was lost when Ken Eyster left.

Fwliw....his son's name is Jim.....perhaps there is another in the brood.
 
It's a long video but the use of a very expensive slow motion camera they were able to determine that the time between first and last pellets striking a target with 7 1/2' shot string was thirteen thousands of a second. A flying target doesn't move very much in that amount of time.

Shot String | More to the Story | Shotgun Series pt 6
In Joel's follow on video which I posted the link to in my above post he shows and explains why shorter vs. longer shot string doesn't matter.
It only matters when you really need it.
Shooting long angle targets at distance the target only interacts with a small segment of the shot string, it's not like piledriving straight away targets from the 16 yard line.
 
If counting holes in a piece of paper interests, then do it and without the need for wild claims of superior results.....or, the opposite one of being "it's a waste of time"....as our time and results are our own.
I personally enjoyed that degree or type of patterning, along with POI, placement or whatever.
I also 'patterned' for pattern width alone re woodcock.
Patterning, loosely defined, can deliver confidence, and confidence, imo, kills birds.

Also, while I counted pellet after pellet in trying to move pellets into the 5" annular ring for trap.....that was largely an entertainment.
My interests run to birds alone with patterning, other than the years working up a trap load to mimic a favored factory load.
If clays patterning interests tho......again, then do it.

Shot string or width and breadth was and is of no interest, to me, for upland birds.....but if it keeps you off the street, enjoy.
Much the same as Jimmy Muller opinions......I am still not beyond his comparison of choke tubes vis vice grip testing.
If something rings false from someone, I tend to believe it was not a one-off.đź’ˇ
Even if I find grains of truth within the marketing.
 
Where to start:
1. A shotgun shoots 100% high. All the guns in that model line shoot 100% high. Okay, it's a trap gun.

Another brand or model shotgun shoots 110% high and 4 inches to the left. But nine out of ten of the same brand and model shoot 60/40 and to aim. That is NOT a matter of gun fit! 1/10 is wrong, or 9/10 are wrong. That's a manufacturing error. You find out on paper.

2. Get you some steel shot, some tungsten shot, and some lead. Shoot three patterns, don't change your choke. Get ready to be GOBSMACKED at the differences.

3. "Looking at patterns." If you don't know how to "look", you won't understand what you "see". If you have not had at least a semester of statistics, or put the effort in to really study statistics, with all love... you are like my wife looking in the gun store for shotguns. She doesn't know a side by side from a bolt action goose gun. Therefore, all shotguns are the same. I don't pattern looking for density patterns, because I know statistics. But I know that there is stuff I could do to ruin a pattern... cheap, soft, non-uniform shot, drive the stuff at 1600 fps... stuff like that.

4. Do you know what your "modified" choke looks like?
If shotgun bores were straight pipes... the better barrels have several transition zones inside the bore, not at all like pipes... so what is the bore diameter?
If all shotguns had the same diameter... aside from all 12 gauges not having the same pipe diameter.. you have all the different gauges, too
If all chokes were simple linear constrictions... some have a hyperbolic-y profile, some have an abrupt step, how do you know what your 12 gauge 5/10 Fabarm choke patterns like from a tribore barrel if you don't pattern? (Answer.. it's a very tight Mod, maybe even IM depending on ammo) without shooting paper? Note, my 20 gauge 5/10 thows a more open pattern than the 12. Huh. How do I know?

5. Once you know something about your gun and how it shoots... yes.. you need to work on fit and even more, your hold and stance.

Noweil and I shot some trap last weekend... and I finally got dialed in on my hold and stance. Lightbulb goes on. BING! Okay! Now I am hitting clay. It took about half a box to get it. Then we shot skeet and with my new stance (more forward lean, crawling the stock) I had about as good a score as back in the day when I was shooting in a league.

But if my shotgun was not shooting right, if I didn't have a clue as to which choke to use or what they did, and I had not been working on things for years... that would not have happened. Yes, shooting at flying targets is very important. But so is making sure that your shotgun isn't borked. Especially if you shoot more than one gun.

6. STOP with the shot string nonsense. Science works. The target is going 40 miles per hour or 59 feet per second. The shot is going about 800 feet per second and has a "length" of 10 feet. 10 feet x 1 second/800 feet = 0.0125 seconds from when the first pellet hits to the last.
At 59 feet per second, the target moves 59 x .0125= 0.73 feet or 8.85 inches.
This assumes the target is crossing exactly at 90 degrees. Any slant, and trigonometry says the variation is less.
This assumes the lead is evenly spread out in the string. IT ISN'T. Most of it is in a ball, with some leaders and some laggers. That means the variation will also be a lot less.
 
I have shot at a decoy floating on Eyster's pond but fail to see how a shot string could be viewed, especially over the distances involved. Hmmm.
Such interest in shotstring was never involved in my times there for barrel work.
Regardless tho, Ken was quite the fella and I would take his view on all things scattergun barrel......a lot was lost when Ken Eyster left.

Fwliw....his son's name is Jim.....perhaps there is another in the brood.
Tim and Jim are Ken's sons. Jim carries on the business and Ken's disciplines quite well.
 
Odd…. I have several guns I have never patterned and I know exactly what they’ll do.


Patterns tell you a lot, i just bought a extended rem mod, i shot it at 30 inch circle at 40 yds benched on lead sled, shot 1 oz counted pellets 6s 1st pattern shot poa and shot 35 % next shot shot 42% so not mod at all, just because it said mod. until you shoot a paper you dont no what your gun is doing
 
I wonder if Jim Muller shut up if sales of his chokes would increase 🤔. He’s a snake oil salesman and no matter how many videos he makes…a choke is a choke is a choke. Lastly, aluminum is not an appropriate material for chokes. In case no one can tell, his bs gets under my skin.
Like Jimmy Muller or not, believe in aftermarket chokes or not, believe that aluminum chokes are appropriate or not, Jimmy Muller does make a good product. The reason I like his chokes is simple, when you change one of his chokes, it changes the pattern significantly, with the possible exception of U0 to U1.

If you look at some of my patterning posts, the chokes perform well. 80% plus pattern percentage using .022" (U3) of choke at 40 yards is pretty good stuff. I have been able to do that with a Benelli SS and a 16 gauge Citori that originally came with Invector chokes which are terrible at best.

Do I agree with "don't pattern your shotgun"? Only if you aren't going to count pellets. Especially with hunting loads using larger pellets than #7.5, I believe you need to. Killing a bird is not the same as breaking a clay target. I want to pulverize clay targets, but since I am looking for a nice dinner when bird hunting, I don't want to pulverize the bird. I also don't want to miss the bird. To my simple mind I think patterning is more important with hunting loads than clay target loads.

Does a pattern tell you everything? No, but it gives you some insight into what you can expect.

I do agree with those that have said that a well made OEM choke will perform as well as an aftermarket choke. I went with Mullers because they look nice and perform as nice as they look, and because when I change a Muller choke I actually changed the choke, not pat it on the butt with a .005" change or less. The other thing that I like is that the Muller chokes aren't all the same on the inside. They are made for the bore diameter of whatever model you have. I can't say that for every choke manufacturer out there. For my Citori I went to two when known choke companies and their chokes patterned almost identically to the Browning Invector junk. Muller chokes were the brand that I hit on that patterned correctly.

To be completely transparent, I have shot with Mr. Muller on numerous occasions when I lived in CT. All I can tell you is that he has always been honest with me, a gentleman and he can shoot......well.

And no I am not on his payroll.
 
6. STOP with the shot string nonsense. Science works. The target is going 40 miles per hour or 59 feet per second. The shot is going about 800 feet per second and has a "length" of 10 feet. 10 feet x 1 second/800 feet = 0.0125 seconds from when the first pellet hits to the last.
At 59 feet per second, the target moves 59 x .0125= 0.73 feet or 8.85 inches.
This assumes the target is crossing exactly at 90 degrees. Any slant, and trigonometry says the variation is less.
This assumes the lead is evenly spread out in the string. IT ISN'T. Most of it is in a ball, with some leaders and some laggers. That means the variation will also be a lot less.
^This
 
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