1/8 ounceof shot?

[richhodg66]

Yes, I have. Good thing too, barrels are regulated to hit in the same place.

[rking22]

Well made gun, many of the lesser priced hunting guns of that period put their modern “betters” to shame. I refinished an Iver Johnson Hammerforged a while back. The interior components were all stoned to fit and properly hardened, once cleaned up it was smooth and tight, properly regulated too! There are many new and pretty over indeed that do not converge!
Have fun, try some chips for kicks and giggles too.

[centershot]

If I'm understanding this conversation correctly, what you're all saying is that a faster load will pattern tighter than a slower load of equal size ans weight? One ounce of 8's @ 1300 will pattern tighter than 1 oz. of 8's @1200? How is that possible?

[rking22]

It’s not, the lighter 7/8 oz load does pattern tighter but it is due to less deformation of the shot from acceleration, less inertia. Also the commercial international loads are all with hard shot, which also reduces deformation. A 7/8 load at 1200 is even tighter, less recoil and breaks American skeet and trap from the 16 yard line just fine. But with a fixed full choke that slower load is Really tight! Good for fine tuning your point! Problem with slower 7/8 loads in 12 ga is it’s hard to build enough pressure to make them not “poofy” in the cold. That’s not a problem in 16 ga.

[centershot]

Well, it's nice to finally be able to log in again after "the move"!

Thank you rking22 for your explanation, I wasn't understanding the mechanics of that!

[richhodg66]

The evening after I last posted, I went out with some 7/8 ounce loads. Shot my usual two rounds and as usually seems to be the case, did better on the first one than the second but hit 18 on the first round which is a personal best since I started this a couple of months ago. Apparently, it either doesn't make much difference or I'm not a good enough shooter for it to make much difference.

When I start reloading for these, I'm gonna focus effort on 7/8 ounce loads, I think.

[rking22]

18 with a SxS is not a bad score, you have motivated me to take my JC Higgins 16 to the club! Big thing is , did you have fun?

[richhodg66]

I enjoy it every time I go. It's a different kind of crowd than the other range I go to which is rifle and pistol, but good people nonetheless.

I could almost see myself starting to shoot trap seriously in a year or two if the interest for me keeps up.

[MT Chambers]

It's all fine and dandy unless you believe (like me) on the "golden BB" theory. I use all the shot that I'm allowed (1 1/8 oz.).

[MOA]

Rich, try this. Keeping in mind that density is important, one must remember shot string. A 1-1/8oz shot string is shorter in a twelve gauge than a sixteen and the string gets longer as weight of shot stays constant while gauge sizes increase. You really don't have much pattern density at 30 yards with a fast moving target unless it is moving away from you with no angle. The sharper the angle the less pattern density. IC and MOD chokes might be good for rabbits and squirrels but for most wing shooting I would stay with mod or full unless the shooting is very close. I like making all my sixteen loads in 7 through 8 shot 7/8 oz loads with red dot as fast as I can make them where I can shoot 50 rounds comfortably. I only use magnum hard shot. Here's a good test. Get a roll of butcher paper and pull off thirty feet. Put it out at 35 yards and take a follow through swinging shot with 7/8, 1, 1-1/8 oz loads and really see your shot string. If 80 percent of your shot is behind the target your shot weight is irrelevant. Try loading with as many different wads with the same load of shot, hull, primer, and powder until you get your best pattern from different angles.

[richhodg66]

Rich, try this. Keeping in mind that density is important, one must remember shot string. A 1-1/8oz shot string is shorter in a twelve gauge than a sixteen and the string gets longer as weight of shot stays constant while gauge sizes increase. You really don't have much pattern density at 30 yards with a fast moving target unless it is moving away from you with no angle. The sharper the angle the less pattern density. IC and MOD chokes might be good for rabbits and squirrels but for most wing shooting I would stay with mod or full unless the shooting is very close. I like making all my sixteen loads in 7 through 8 shot 7/8 oz loads with red dot as fast as I can make them where I can shoot 50 rounds comfortably. I only use magnum hard shot. Here's a good test. Get a roll of butcher paper and pull off thirty feet. Put it out at 35 yards and take a follow through swinging shot with 7/8, 1, 1-1/8 oz loads and really see your shot string. If 80 percent of your shot is behind the target your shot weight is irrelevant. Try loading with as many different wads with the same load of shot, hull, primer, and powder until you get your best pattern from different angles.

Thanks, Barry. Getting way more scientific there than I would have, but it all makes sense.

I didn't really take this up to be a better trap shooter, mainly wanted to be reasonably proficient with a gun I want to hunt with. Even though I have a lot of reloading stuff for it, I still have quite a few Remington factory shells and some others. I plan to load some bismuth for hunting my public land here eventually.

I have a few other guns I could try, one of the pumps would give a longer "sight radius" which may be helpful and both have tighter chokes, I just kinda like this little double.

My Dad was never really much of a shotgunner, but during the time between when I moved out to go to college and when he detached a retina basically finishing his doing any competition, he took up trap to a degree and was shooting it pretty regularly and sounded like he was doing pretty well at it. Among other many things he gifted me when we moved my folks into assisted living was the gun he shot, a beautiful Ithaca single designed for trap shooting, it's been sitting in the safe since then with me kind of having forgotten about it. I picked it up yesterday and can see the appeal. If I decide to start shooting trap for the sake of shooting trap, it will definitely see some use.

Shotguns are fun, I should have started doing this years ago.

[megasupermagnum]

Rich, try this. Keeping in mind that density is important, one must remember shot string. A 1-1/8oz shot string is shorter in a twelve gauge than a sixteen and the string gets longer as weight of shot stays constant while gauge sizes increase. You really don't have much pattern density at 30 yards with a fast moving target unless it is moving away from you with no angle. The sharper the angle the less pattern density. IC and MOD chokes might be good for rabbits and squirrels but for most wing shooting I would stay with mod or full unless the shooting is very close. I like making all my sixteen loads in 7 through 8 shot 7/8 oz loads with red dot as fast as I can make them where I can shoot 50 rounds comfortably. I only use magnum hard shot. Here's a good test. Get a roll of butcher paper and pull off thirty feet. Put it out at 35 yards and take a follow through swinging shot with 7/8, 1, 1-1/8 oz loads and really see your shot string. If 80 percent of your shot is behind the target your shot weight is irrelevant. Try loading with as many different wads with the same load of shot, hull, primer, and powder until you get your best pattern from different angles.

Swinging the gun doesn't cause shot stringing.

[rking22]

That falsehood has been out there forever, it is impossible to move the muzzle fast enough to “string” the shot like a garden hose. Shot column is about a inch, 1200 FPS load is 14400 inches per second, that means the 1 inch slug of shot takes .00006944 seconds to pass the muzzle. Human reaction time is roughly .2 seconds, that is how long it takes from eyes saying “pull the trigger “ till the finger actually does. If you did you could never time the trigger break to hit anything. Nothing flies that fast. Way to hit flying targets is to match muzzle speed to target speed or very close to matched. Pull away is a very gentle move.

[MT Chambers]

If you shoot alot of claybirds (Trap) you will know about the bird that almost got away with just 1 small chip out of it, making it a dead bird. Would you have gotten it with 100 less pellets? If you check the target fall zone, you will see many targets that have a hole or 2 in them, but were not broken, these are losses. Would they be hits with 100 extra pellets? Remember this is a Trap shoot where the dif. between a 100 and a 99 is the dif. between a loss and a win.

[rking22]

Registered targets?? I would be shooting 1 oz of #8 because I will have just as many pellets as that 1 1/8 of 7 1/2 (and I have total confidence in #9 shot, but I want the extra energy in case I need to take one late) and less recoil. Recoil is fatigue, and the off chance that an extra stray pellet in the fringe gets me a chip on a badly pointed target is not worth the extra recoil induced fatigue. Especially with the multiple 100s of targets shot in a day, and shoot offs. So no, I won’t shoot 1 1/8 at 16 yard trap hoping for a lucky chip. I know lots who do make that choice the other way.

[richhodg66]

Well, not a serious trap shooter, just trying to be a more effective shotgunner. I only shoot two rounds at a time, not because of recoil, but because my concentration seems to lapse, I usually do a bit better on the first one than the second.

My last two range trips have been with some 7/8 ounce loads and I actually have done my best both times. I've been getting better continuously, so I doubt the shot charge made any real difference.

This is all good stuff for a guy trying to learn more about internal and external ballistcs of shotgun loads. The advice to use #8 to equal the same number of pellets is good advice, I'll buy #8 for this when I buy a large quantity of shot.

[MOA]

Swinging the gun doesn't cause shot stringing.

Correct. I didn't say it caused it. I said by doing the shot with butcher paper it would allow you to SEE the shot string visually. Most people are not even aware of shot strings.

[megasupermagnum]

Correct. I didn't say it caused it. I said by doing the shot with butcher paper it would allow you to SEE the shot string visually. Most people are not even aware of shot strings.

No, you can not see shot stringing on paper, unless you have someone in a car, towing a trailer with said butcher paper at 40 mph. That test was done by Bob Brister.

There is nothing the average guy can do to test shot stringing without getting into redneck territory (see towing target). Most testing is now done with cameras, which is what they use at Federal ammo. You can see some of the test's they have done online. Here is one example... https://www.fieldandstream.com/artic...t-shogun-ammo/

Take note of the 1 ounce 20 gauge vs 1 ounce 12 gauge. At 20 yards, the 20 gauge had about a 57" long string, and the 12 gauge had about 55". I think it's safe to say the shot string difference between a 7/8 oz 12 gauge vs 1 ounce 12 gauge is nothing to argue.