shotgun pattern size

[turtlezx]

if cylinder choke throws 32" at 20 yds what size would the pattern be at 35yds and 40 yds ?????

[Outpost75]

A cylinder choke will generally throw a 20-inch diameter pattern at 20 yards. One inch per yard is normally expected unless something else is going on.

[megasupermagnum]

A cylinder choke will generally throw a 20-inch diameter pattern at 20 yards. One inch per yard is normally expected unless something else is going on.

That rule of thumb is a waste of time. It was meant for old school buckshot, and still was anything but an absolute.

To answer your question, my math says 64" at 40 yards. The chances of that playing out in reality is slim. Every load is going to have shot that is more round than others. If you look at a pattern, you will see a denser core, and a sparse outer. Generally bird hunters calculate the % inside of a 30" circle at 40 yards. Many turkey hunters, myself included, count the number of pellets inside of a 10" circle. The problem with pattern percentage is that the effectiveness is dependent on the pellet count. A 70% pattern of #3's is great on ducks. A 70% pattern of BBB is useless.

[turtlezx]

20 " pattern at 20 yds is modified choke

[M-Tecs]

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[megasupermagnum]

20 " pattern at 20 yds is modified choke

Are you just pulling these number off of that chart?

[Harter66]

Plain , chilled , copper wash , copper plated , nickle plated lead , bismuth , pick an iron based , pick a matrix type shot , wad cup shape , stiffness , thickness , and powder selection can alter the cone of expansion as well as the pellet count and charge weight .

It should be 64"@40 yd but with large shot say B and up it may stay tighter with a smaller % outside and almost certainly with 1oz vs 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 oz . It's all physics and drafting or more appropriately bump drafting .

I made my head hurt often understanding my results in the early steel shot days . Trying to graph the results didn't help .

[turtlezx]

??? i was lucky hit a clay at 35 yds on the skeet field with a 410 cylinder bore 1/2oz of #9

[turtlezx]

yes off chart go for cylinder bore on 410 20 12s for skeet field

[megasupermagnum]

??? i was lucky hit a clay at 35 yds on the skeet field with a 410 cylinder bore 1/2oz of #9

I'm not sure if this is a question or not, but the pellet count on such a load is around 292 pellets. In your standard issue 12 gauge load, 1 1/8 oz of #8, you have about 461 pellets. Even the 12 gauge load is iffy at 35 yards with no choke. I am not a hard core clay shooter, so cannot give you much help there. I would think you would need a pretty tight pattern when only working with 1/2 of shot to hit the edge of a clay with any regularity.

[turtlezx]

normal shot is 20 yds on skeet i like no tighter than improved choke

[megasupermagnum]

normal shot is 20 yds on skeet i like no tighter than improved choke

I've read this thread over a few times now, but your lack of punctuation is making it tough to understand. Is there a question here?

[pashiner]

The only way to know for sure...heck, to have any better idea than a guess is to pattern the gun on paper with different shells at different ranges. I learned this the hard way. After a few boxes of shells and a pocket full of choke tubes at the pattern board at my local trap club, I found out that my "trap gun" with its interchangeable chokes just straight up hates target loads, and $100 spent on choke tubes would have been better used for two flats of shells instead. I now shoot sporting clays with my smoothbore slug gun. Just by changing from 7s to 9s in that cylinder barrel, I get useful enough pattern changes that the lack of choke doesn't matter. 7s for the long shots, 9s for the real close stuff, and 8s for everything else. Sure beats screwing choke tubes in and out. Now my trap gun wears a rifled barrel. I wouldn't have believed It if I hadn't seen it myself. My scores went up considerably too...from 55% to nearly 70% hits just by abandoning conventional wisdom and giving the gun what it actually wants.

[turtlezx]

surprizing how many shotgunner never pattern??
they would never put a scope on a rifle and not sight it in.
but not checking a were a shotgun shoots is ok

[megasupermagnum]

surprizing how many shotgunner never pattern??
they would never put a scope on a rifle and not sight it in.
but not checking a were a shotgun shoots is ok

A sickening percentage of hunters never sight in a rifle either. "I was told it was bore sighted." I think some people justify being lazy just on the fact that everybody gets cripples eventually. Those same people seem to overlook that I'm going 6/6 dead on the water, while every other bird they shoot is a 20 minute expedition to try and swat them, usually blowing half a dozen shells or more. Don't take those kinds of people on diver duck hunts.

[turtlezx]

i have no faith in bore sighting at all
i use the 3 shot sight in method could be off 3 foot on 1st shot and in the black by the 3rd

[rking22]

The labels on choke tubes mean little. I have a Briley “full” 410 tube that throws a very patchy cylinder type pattern from either of my sub gage tubes, full length and made by Briley as well. Measures ok, patterns more open than the IC. If you don’t check, you don’t know.
My Cutts spreader tube on my 20ga M12 throws a IM pattern with modern plastic shot cups. That thing will smoke 40 yard sporting targets, a bit challenging on 20 yard skeet at gets.
Guess now that I chimed in, for me, a cyl pattern at 40 yards is useless, not enough density for sure kills. I want Mod for that distance, if I miss I do not want to wonder if the pattern density was inadequate. I prefer over choked to under choked, not interested in a lucky break on a badly pointed bird.

[turtlezx]

agree on choke lables gotta pattern them i had the opposite happen. Skeet and improved marked chokes threw improved modified

[megasupermagnum]

The labels on choke tubes mean little. I have a Briley “full” 410 tube that throws a very patchy cylinder type pattern from either of my sub gage tubes, full length and made by Briley as well. Measures ok, patterns more open than the IC. If you don’t check, you don’t know.
My Cutts spreader tube on my 20ga M12 throws a IM pattern with modern plastic shot cups. That thing will smoke 40 yard sporting targets, a bit challenging on 20 yard skeet at gets.
Guess now that I chimed in, for me, a cyl pattern at 40 yards is useless, not enough density for sure kills. I want Mod for that distance, if I miss I do not want to wonder if the pattern density was inadequate. I prefer over choked to under choked, not interested in a lucky break on a badly pointed bird.

Shotgun patterns can vary widely with different loads, but you are almost certainly never going to get an adequate pattern for anything at 40 yards with a cylinder bore. I also like to err on the side of tight chokes. If you aren't going to pattern your gun, at the very least use a full choke (modified for steel). Now that I think of it, my turkey gun is a Knight TK2000 with an extra full jug choke. My duck gun, I'm shooting with a full choke. My goose gun is a fixed full, .040" constriction. Buckshot, I usually find best with a full choke. About the only thing I don't use a full choke on is rabbits and squirrels.

[Blood Trail]

I got a video of me dropping a pheasant at over 50 yards with a skeet choke. Balled it up. This was with hand loaded 1 1/4 oz #6’s. Not sure how that Brileys skeet choke patterned, but the pheasant didn’t know the difference.


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[Greg S]

Until you pattern the shotgun with the loads your using, it is a crap shoot.

[rking22]

The thing about choke selection for distance isn’t what worked one day, but what will give the best chance of working Every Time. I shoot lots of vintage guns, most are mod or full. I started out with a fixed mod choke in my one and only shotgun around 1970. After going full circle with lots of choke tubes ect., I am again of the opinion that you can do most of the work a shotgun is needed for with a well pointed fixed modified. Changing loads like 9s for close, 6s for long and nontoxic for ducks is better than constantly gobbling with choke tubes. Sporting clays included, but at the top you are going to need IM or more for some of the really long stuff. In general, IC will get you a lot of broken targets if you stay focused on the target and not wondering about the choke. I find myself comfortable with a nice old gun in IC and Mod , or Mod and Full the way a lot of them were built.

[doghunter]

In my experience, shotgun patterns fall apart quickly. My full choked gun throws an 11" pattern at 40 yards, but it opens up to 16-18" at 50 and will put most of the pellets in 24" at 60.

[megasupermagnum]

In my experience, shotgun patterns fall apart quickly. My full choked gun throws an 11" pattern at 40 yards, but it opens up to 16-18" at 50 and will put most of the pellets in 24" at 60.

You must mean 40,50, and 60 feet.

[toallmy]

Thumb tac a white paper plate on a large piece of cardboard walk off your yardage , take a shot just 1 shot then go see what really happened . Do this several times with a new piece of cardboard and paper plate to confirm . Most will be surprised where the pattern really is on target or beside the target .

[6pt-sika]

surprizing how many shotgunner never pattern??
they would never put a scope on a rifle and not sight it in.
but not checking a were a shotgun shoots is ok

You said two seprate things here .

Shooting patterns is just for supposedly seeing which quadrants get the greater percentage of shot , but it's really only good for the target shot . To do a definitive study on a gun-load you need to shoot a series of targets with the same load at the same distance yadda yadda yadda .

Checking where your shotgun shoots IE: POI is a totally different thing . I'll confess I usually checked my skeet and trap guns for POI but I very rarely patterned them . I tell people DO NOT pattern your 410 skeet gun or tubes especially if you are a new shooter . It'll do nothing more than cut into your confidence when you see all the clay bird sized holes . The whole concept of patterning on paper is of course one dimensional and shot versus a clay target just doesn't work that way . A shot cluster as it goes thru the air is in no shape or form ONE DIMENSIONAL but rather a sausage shape so even though your one dimensional paper pattern looks awesome there's still the possibility that the target somehow makes it's way thru the multi dimensional sausage pattern .

And no I know nothing about what I speak I've only shot the clay target games competitively and for fun for the last 40 years .

[turtlezx]

think there was a test done years ago i would like to find??
guy shot at a carboard target moving at 40mph to see what the pattern looked like

[rking22]

You are talking about Bob Brister, I believe. (Corrected that when found it) here https://books.google.com/books?id=vlyCDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT398&lpg=PT398&dq=Bob+Brister+shot+string+test&source=bl&ots=gjaZ7YcCwc&sig=ACfU3U0PoVoDsWAypxkmVLJHr9Mq0jrZGA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwinpPbM35DoAhWiiOAKHT8yAaIQ6AEwBHoECAkQA Q#v=onepage&q=Bob%20Brister%20shot%20string%20test&f=false
I remember reading that back in the 70s. He demonstrated the fact that shot strung out in a constantly changing teardrop shape. Some pellets drafting others like NASCAR drivers. On clay targets, the target travels about 6 inches as the shot cloud passes thru it. Blaser did some cool high speed photography for their F16 advertising. You can see the shot cloud. I will see if I can find and post a Link. Quick screenshot, best views are right at the start and toward the end.

https://youtu.be/jT46mZKf2cA
Quick screenshot
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[rking22]

More info, screenshots with a bit of interest and detail of book, all from link above. Book wll have pictures that are missing from the online teaser.
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[doghunter]

You must mean 40,50, and 60 feet.

No sir. Yards

I wouldn't hunt with one I had to pattern @ 40 feet

[doghunter]

I just realized yall weren't talking about buckshot patterns. I'm talking about buckshot patterns.

[6pt-sika]

I just realized yall weren't talking about buckshot patterns. I'm talking about buckshot patterns.

Shotgun patterns atleast for me open a different world . Everything you might read about chokes versus the size of buckshot ain’t necissarily so ! I’ve got some really tight choked 10 gauge doubles that pattern 00 , 000 , 0000 and 00000 size very well . But then my max yardage with them is 35ish yards . I’ve got an older Benelli Montefeltro 12 gauge 3” with a 22” barrel that does very well with Kicks screw in chokes in most all sizes and I keep all on hand starting with #3 up to and including home cast 0000 and 00000 . I did say before I don’t pattern just go by POI and that’s quite true with birdshot . But with buckshot I shoot quite a few patterns every year . At present I load buck and slugs for every gauge from 28 up to and including the 10 gauge 2 7/8” . It’s a hobby what can I say !

[AggieEE]

About game/target shot patterns. I remember reading somewhere that a famous shooter sometime in the 30's to 50's took a 55 gal. barrel wrapped paper around it spun the barrel and shot it. the paper gave a record of how the shot charge changed in time. Just because there is a clay target size hole in the pattern doesn't necessarily mean that the target will be unbroken. The shot and the target are both moving in space.

[rking22]

Yes, and the target moves around 6 inches(90deg crosser)while the 12 foot shot string pass the plane the target is flying in. Remember the shot is doing 1200 fps, the target only about 60fps. The entire shot string passes in .01 seconds, long enough for the target to move 6 inches. If it’s a straight away, like trap, it’s a total non issue. For myself, and I don’t count pellet holes either, the static pattern is fully useful. I am interested that my pattern prints where I’m looking, and that I have roughly what I expect for pattern density for the choke.