NEW Shotgun Pattern Test Results - Detail & Pic' heavy...

I had a new barrel arrive today.

It's a parkerized 18.5 inch rifle sighted smoothbore barrel with a fixed Mod choke. It came with tritium night sights.

I took a 50 yard poke with the Hornady #4 buck to see what it looked like.

Nothing impressive. I hope the Federal Coyote patterns well or else I may be slinging low recoil slugs this year.

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You ever think of possibly having that barrel threaded for choke tubes? Ive been giving it some thought with my 18.5 barrel. I imagine there should be enough meat on the barrel to do it and my local dealer said he could do it for $45.
 
Originally Posted By: Sgtshultzy266You ever think of possibly having that barrel threaded for choke tubes? Ive been giving it some thought with my 18.5 barrel. I imagine there should be enough meat on the barrel to do it and my local dealer said he could do it for $45.

I doubt I'll mess with it.

The Federal Vital Shock Coyote load (with the Flight Control wad) did quite well through a Mod RemChoke with the old barrel.

I'm out of ammo now, but i'll post some patterning with it soon.

Here's my 52 yard pattern from before:

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IIRC the coffee can lid was 8"? The POI was off a little high from POA. That's what made me decide to switch up to a rifle sighted barrel. Plus I wanted a set of tritium night sights for two legged varmints....
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ETA: I just measured a coffee can lid- They are 6" .
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Originally Posted By: Grizzly JohnsonJust wondering if any of you guys are polishing your shotgun barrels to improve your patterns?

GJ
This barrel was fresh, but after I cleaned it I did run some 0000 steel wool on a brush with the drill to smooth things up.
I paid particular attention to the chamber, to make extraction as smooth as possible.....
 
Originally Posted By: CrazyHorse66Originally Posted By: Grizzly JohnsonJust wondering if any of you guys are polishing your shotgun barrels to improve your patterns?

GJ
This barrel was fresh, but after I cleaned it I did run some 0000 steel wool on a brush with the drill to smooth things up.
I paid particular attention to the chamber, to make extraction as smooth as possible.....

Before I got into turkey hunting, I never knew of such a thing. However after being introduced to turkeys and visiting turkey forums to learn as much as possible about turkey hunting (much like being here and with predators), I now polish all my turkey gun barrels... might as well try it on my predator shotty too! I have seen some brand new barrels with tooling marks on the inside..... a good polishing helped them alot. "T" shot is the largest shot allowed in Tennessee for predators besides a slug.

How you liking those new sights? I have them on my carry gun and really like them at night or in the dark.
 
There are a couple of Smiths that specialize in smoothing and lengthening the forcing cones...They state that it produces better patterns...

I always polish mine after a shooting session by wrapping a large tight patch that has been impregnated with JB polish around a wire brush and chucked into a cordless drill and then follow it with a good dose of Rem Oil and then dry patches...

Looks like a mirror when you put a light down the barrel and my patterns stay consistent out of an 18.5" barrel with a modified choke...

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Originally Posted By: OldTurtleThere are a couple of Smiths that specialize in smoothing and lengthening the forcing cones...They state that it produces better patterns...

I always polish mine after a shooting session by wrapping a large tight patch that has been impregnated with JB polish around a wire brush and chucked into a cordless drill and then follow it with a good dose of Rem Oil and then dry patches...

Looks like a mirror when you put a light down the barrel and my patterns stay consistent out of an 18.5" barrel with a modified choke...

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A trimmed piece of GREEN scotch-brite pad does great too. Just cut it to where it wraps around a 20ga wire cleaning brush (for use in 12ga barrel, use a 12ga brush for polishing a 10ga barrel, and so on) and the edges of the pad just touch. You take the JB paste and rub down into the pad. Insert pad/brush into the chamber end of the barrel, lubricate with Kroil or quality gun oil, chuck the long cleaning rod into a low-med speed drill and make long sweeping strokes up and down the barrel. Just be sure not to run the pad plum out the far end of the barrel. Try not to polish much in the chamber area either. Keep squirting oil in the barrel every so often..... you want a slurry dripping out the end of the barrel while polishing, never let pad run dry as heat will build up inside the barrel and dry out JB paste.

I usually make 25-30 passes (1 pass is down and back) per pad, change pads and go again until I make 100-150 passes depending on the condition of barrel at starting point.

Then just pull a clean patch through until all the residue is out. Run one more with a light coat of oil through before storing.
 
It is interesting how barrels react to a deep cleaning. Most will respond really well to it. Some barrels like it much less so. One of my Benelli M1's shoots the absolute best patterns for the first dozen shots from a squeaky clean barrel. The other M1 patterns begin to really get consistent after about a dozen shots have been fired. That first barrel that likes to be squeaky clean begins to quickly lose it's consistent patterns after 12 - 15 shots. The second one stays very consistent with a dirty bore and really isn't losing much for long enough that it doesn't seem to matter as I'll usually clean it at some point before the bore gets fouled enough to notice inconsistent or bad results. Just as some rifle barrels like to be clean or will/can shoot dirty for long periods the same for shotguns if a guy takes the time to notice.
 
My 870 with my turkey choke will barely put shot on paper the first 2 rounds with a clean barrel. Then she pulls together and paterns real nice. I always fire 2-4 rounds of low base cheapies through it after a cleaning before going out hunting.
 
I ordered a custom Kick's .680" choke for my Remington 870 a while back. Finally got around to testing it. My conclusion is that my shotgun is just ok, it's not going to ever pattern super tight after testing a bunch of chokes and a bunch of loads.

Here are the results with Dead Coyote T-shot. First at 40 yards:
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50 yards was not as impressive:
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Also tried Federal #4 Buckshot, first copper plated, then lead. It shot a little wide to the right.

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I held over a litte too far to the left to correct the POI.
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Lead #4 Buckshot shot the same.
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I held over a little too far kentucky windage.
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Federal 3" copper plated BBs apparently used to be the standard fox round back in the day, so I tried some of those too. I found that the pattern is devistating out to 35 yards, but it really spreads past that. This Kick's .680" shoots it the best of all the chokes I've tried so far from .665" to .700".

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Thanks for posting those pictures. You did a really good job with your patterning and posting those illustrated pictures. Amazing what an extra 5 or 10 yards can do to a pattern, isn't it? Your pictures reveal how finicky shotguns, chokes and various loads can be and how important it is to pattern them to ensure that your pattern is at point of aim and how well it performs at any given range. And how difficult it is to find that often quoted 70+ yard shotgun, choke and load combination. It is also amazing how much difference .010" in a choke can make on a pattern or simply a switch of brand of shell and/or shot size. Honest testing results are interesting stuff...
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Thanks. I had some other loads that I did not test. They're going extinct, why get my hopes up...

Question: Why are all the best loads either no longer in production or priced out of this universe? DC T shot is up to $45/box around here...
 
The first three pattern pictures look pretty good to me.

Great pictures and write up on your patterns.

Just a little over a month ago I ordered Hevi-Shot 3" DC T shot from Sportsman's Warehouse for $30.00 per box, I also got some Hevi-Shot 3" B 1-1/2 oz Goose loads for $27.00 per box.
http://www.sportsmanswarehouse.com/sport...72110/cat110193

Some places still have the Hevi-Shot loads for the old prices. We just thought the old prices were high, LOL. The new prices make the old prices look like a great deal.

Right now Cabela's has Winchester Hi-Density 3" 1-3/8 oz B loads on a close out special for $19.98 per box of 10 shells.


If I could still use lead shot on coyotes I would be using the Federal Premium copper coated lead BB loads. The copper coated lead BBs work great at 40 yards and less on the small coyotes I hunt. In your pictures of the Federal lead BB load patterns you can see that with the extra width of the pattern and the higher pellet count, these lead BB loads make it easier to hit running coyotes at less than 40 yards.
 
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I have a Rem 870 that I have yet to shoot much. I think the first shots fired through it were probably with cawilson here on these boards! We went to an informal range he set up and I tried a shot or two of his loads (I think they were turkey loads, but it was a couple months ago, I am not sure). I have no idea how well it will actually perform at ranges of 50 yards with various loads because we just had a few of those turkey (?) loads handy. I have a shotshell press or two, I also have the powder, wads, and some shells, I could make some (as I also have the shot, but I have to make sure the size is acceptable, I think it might be a hair too big to be legal - .310 diameter is probably a form of buckshot...) but I do not want to get stupid. One problem I have is that I am trying to get ammo that is not horribly expensive, but seem to be seeing a lot of 40-50 dollar per 20 boxes of shotgun shells! Around here waterfowl is huge, so there is little to no lead shot available, and the coyote ammo thus labelled and bismuth shot are very costly... I may have to stick with the AR, my .45, and slugs/bow!

The question I have is that I noticed that the patterns on your patternboard were not all centered on the target. Some were pretty tight patterns but would have been more effective on the countryside than the critter. You also mentioned an elevation issue. Is it accurate to state that I will likely have elevation issues with the shotgun when using it for coyotes with the bead sight that it currently wears? Also, it currently wears a screw-in choke (I think Improve Cylinder, but it might be a Modified) and my old shotgun had a PolyChoke on it (which I loved). Are IC or Mod chokes better for shooting to say 40 yards with the shotgun for coyotes using shot that is suitable for the restrictions of shot size we have in Tennessee? Am I better with another choke size, or is there a way to know without wasting a box of ammo what size choke will likely be best? The ammo waste would cost more than each of the additional choke tubes that I likely would not otherwise use!
 
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