To me, yes and NO! Depends on the wad and the situation. Generally, no they don't make a lot of difference, BUT THEY CAN! I've been hacking arround with this shotgun loading since the early '60s. I had to use what I could get my hands on. I've studdied adnausium the differences in performance and hulls and primers etc, etc, and honestly couldn't really tell much difference between any of the combinations other than they didn't always fit in the hull well. Just like Case said,
some published combinations just don't work well, must have been someone's imagination. That is another reason I believe many listed load combinations have NEVER been shot, just extrapolated by the powder manufacturers. Surely they wouldn't have really printed some of those recomendations if they really HAD tried them?? :?
BP