Odd buckshot behavior - as cast & tumbled

[Spudgunr]

I have been working with the IMR 8 pellet 00 load and have been getting pretty good results at 33 yards, about 7-9" is typical. I recently stepped back a bit to 43-45 yards and the pattern grew considerably, more like 15-20". I had a theory the sprue cutoff point was causing the erratic flight and that it just took that distance to show up. So, I tumbled some buckshot and made the same* load for testing. These are different shots, not multiple layers of paper to show the pattern of the same shot. Total of 8 shots, 2 of each load at each distance.

	33 yd	45yd
As Cast	8.5	23
	9	17" (only 7 pellets hit, 3 clustered in 1"
tumbled w/graphite	17	18
	14	21

As you can see the tumbled shot had much worse pattern at 33 yards, but it hardly got any bigger at 45 yards. Any ideas what is going on? I'm flummoxed. I could understand if the 45 yard patterns were then much worse as well, but 45 yards was about the same as 33 with the tumbled shot.

All shot with full choke, I was going to do modified but my first shot only 4 pellets hit the paper so I immediately switched and re-did with full choke.


*Same as best I could make it. I used gray Win AA hulls for one, red for the other so they may have been used a different number of times. I also don't know the wad pressure I used on my original loads, so that may have also been different

[Hogtamer]

21" pattern @ 45 yds not too shabby. IIRC moving ~ 1500 fps? Is this a buffered load? If not probably will help a little. Also wads prolly destoyed? Maybe back off charge a couple of grains will tighten up a bit but If you have 3 in the sweet spot that's bad medicine for the receiving end. Oh yeah, hard buckshot helps a lot too.

[Spudgunr]

21" pattern @ 45 yds not too shabby. IIRC moving ~ 1500 fps? Is this a buffered load? If not probably will help a little. Also wads prolly destoyed? Maybe back off charge a couple of grains will tighten up a bit but If you have 3 in the sweet spot that's bad medicine for the receiving end. Oh yeah, hard buckshot helps a lot too.

No, but given the consistently 7-9" at 33 yards I was kind of hoping for 12-15" at 45 or so. These are already buffered, but good idea on backing it down a bit. Considering the speed this isn't bad, a bit slower may do better so I will give that a try next. The wad typically looks pretty decent, occasionally one petal will be almost detached but most of the time not bad. These are water dropped wheel weights, so I think that is helping me on the hardness.

The thing i thought noteworthy though is the fact the tumbled shot was CONSIDERABLY worse at 33 yards, but the pattern was pretty much the exact same size at 45 yards and then the same or slightly better than the non-tumbled shot. Still baffles me what may be going on there.

[Hogtamer]

Phase of the moon you know affects shotgun loading! Seems like that's a good a reason as any sometimes when you've got all the bases covered. Put a tad of buffer under the first 2 as well. I was blowing the bottom out of the shotcup with the full load of 800x, backing off a little helped.

[runfiverun]

your still tighter than bird shot at that distance.
45 yds is stretching things for 4-5-6 shot it's more in a 30+" circle at that distance.

[RMc]

This presumes the word Tumbler means a rotary rock tumbler:

Dry tumbling results in an evenly rough surface on hard cast buckshot pellets. Tumbling with water results in a smooth polished surface. Smooth polished is what you want.

In either case, great care must be used to deal with lead dust or lead residue in water.

Lee round ball molds, (not buckshot molds). virtually eliminate sprue projections or flats without further processing.

https://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categ...2/1/LEE-310-6C

[kungfustyle]

I got my buckshot mold through sharp shooter, but that shouldn't mater much. It still has a flat spot on the pellet. I found that changing wads and pressure/load/choke all played a part in load development. 9 pellets of coww 00 buck w/ Modified choke w/ WAA12 w/ AA hulls and 22g of universal Fed primers worked best. I had about a 10" group with 9 pellets at 30 yards as my best (three rounds). Just change one thing at a time till you find what works.

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

I bought a rotary tumbler from Harbor Freight. I put several dozen 00 buck in it along with some graphite. Ran it all night. It came out smooth and shiny, but it did nothing to remove the sprue nubs. I'm thinking I will have to glue in some sort of ribs as I believe with smooth sides it just rolls along without any impact to remove those nubs. All thoughts and real life experience appreciated.

[Hogtamer]

Fill an empty 1 lb powder bottle about 1/3 full and shake it , then shake it some more...I do that on the way to work or church, etc and accomplish 2 things: Give your arms a workout and tame those pesky sprues. Get some odd looks from the cars stopped next to you at a traffic light and just smile and shake on. About 30 minutes of actual shaking and you've got good shot. Better hurry though cause I'm thinking about a patent on this process.

[Spudgunr]

I bought a rotary tumbler from Harbor Freight. I put several dozen 00 buck in it along with some graphite. Ran it all night. It came out smooth and shiny, but it did nothing to remove the sprue nubs. I'm thinking I will have to glue in some sort of ribs as I believe with smooth sides it just rolls along without any impact to remove those nubs. All thoughts and real life experience appreciated.

Charlie, no experience with that tumbler, but mine is a Thumbler's Tumbler, it is a hexagonal shape. You don't need complete fins, in fact, that may let the shot drop too far since it wouldn't drop until it reached 90 degrees. Maybe it would work, just don't use too large of a flap. Or, get a piece of angle and hammer it down to a bit less than 90.

That said, as I saw above it didn't help me a lot. The only thing I have come up with as a theory to explain the discrepancy is maybe the unplated shot kind of sticks together and that may help the 33 yard group, but by then its apart and then the flat spots wreak havoc with the group? I'm not certain since I only tumbled with graphite. It would be interesting to re-do it without the graphite to see if the group is super tight then. I am not certain if I am going to or not, but perhaps I will.

[Blood Trail]

Not all full chokes are made the same. My buddy Wade from the YouTube channel Bubba Roundtree Outdoors tested some different types of full chokes with reloads.

Strangely enough, one of the shotguns he fires is a Stoeger m3000. With and IC choke at 50 yards, his pattern was super tight. Then he put on a full choke and, for whatever reason, opened up considerably.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Spudgunr]

Not all full chokes are made the same. My buddy Wade from the YouTube channel Bubba Roundtree Outdoors tested some different types of full chokes with reloads.

Strangely enough, one of the shotguns he fires is a Stoeger m3000. With and IC choke at 50 yards, his pattern was super tight. Then he put on a full choke and, for whatever reason, opened up considerably.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That may be true, but I shot these from the same barrel and same choke. So why did one get much bigger at one distance, but then the pattern did not seem to get any bigger from there? The other had a GREAT pattern at the shorter (33rd, so still pretty far) distance, then opened up CONSIDERABLY with a relatively minor increase in the distance.

I get barrel, choke, load, etc all play a huge part in pattern. What I am curious on was the fact the variable was basically only tumbled & graphited vs un tumbled, why such a difference, and inconsistent difference at that, in the performance? I would understand if one was better at both 33yd and 45 yd, but that isn't the case.

[Hogtamer]

1) 100% certain powder charge was exactly the same? The only way to be sure is to weigh each charge.
2) Was wad pressure and crimp exactly the same? There's a lot of room for variations with shotgun loaders. And it makes a difference.
3) Was the exact same amount of buffer used in each load? Again the only way to know is weigh it.
4) Is it possible that one or two pellets was not filled out, disrupting the stack?
5) Is it possible the hull had a split you didn't notice?

NOT suggesting your loading is haphazard at all. But the target never lies. Something was different. Don't sweat it! Load 10 shells meticulously and shoot them from a rest for testing. That will give you a much better idea than 1 or 2 shots. This made me go out and shoot my "perfect" load again today. I had 2 shells that the crimps were not perfect I had set aside and the results were less than perfect. So went to the stash and got one I had boxed up and shot again. This was at 50 yds, 12 pellets, and 9 of them are accounted for on this target. Little things matter.

Hope this helps.

[MusicMan]

Did you have on the same color shirt? Maybe one shoe untied? New haircut? Old lady pissed at you? Lots of variables to look at!

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

LOL! Don't forget the phase of the moon.