ysr_racer said:
What happens if you have the right shell, but the wrong chokes? Or the wrong shell, but the right chokes?
ysr - I know you're just continuing the discussion and I know that you already know this but it is rarely the arrow. It is almost always the indian (can I even say that anymore).
Good shooters can put shot out of a skeet choke on a target at 40 yards or more. Would a person who's trying to help another shooter (a newer shooter) suggest that - no. Just like Anthony Materese recently stated in his BtB podcast - you don't start a baseball player with an 80mph fast ball - you start with t-ball. Keep the newer shooters who are asking about what shell is better for this or that focused on what they need to be - killing targets that should be shot by their 'peer' group. And second, understanding that those are the targets that they cannot miss if they have competitive expectations for the long run. The person who focuses on those basics will eventually shoot enough different ammo to begin to understand that the ammo rarely matters (and that is brand, speed, shot size, etc). Shooters who learn how to shoot will put whatever ammo they have on the targets that they should be able to hit. All of that boils down to confidence.
And if you want to throw chokes into the discussion - if what used to be the PCSA pros all shoot different chokes (Diane and Bill M. - LM, a bunch of others M or IM) and they all say that misses are in feet and chokes get you inches - why would it matter to the rest of us mere mortals? It doesn't. It all comes back to confidence. If you like your breaks with a specific choke - shoot it. If you're a choke changer - change them.
The real answer to the OP question is the quickest way to go from point a to point b (80 to 90 in this case) is to spend the several hundred dollars on some instruction. Try the Fiiochi shells and see what you think. But bouncing from brand to brand of ammo in search of 5 to 10 points on your card probably isn't going to get it done. There is something else that is holding you back at this point in time.
Lastly, all of this is based off of a paragraph of information, never having seen the OP shoot or knowing him. I could be WAYYY off base........
Final thought - If you really are going after those 5 to 8 points on your card and you're not journaling your performance to find those presentations that you struggle with - you really should. It is pretty easy to see commonalities especially if you're only dropping 15 total each event.