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True or False. My loads are a perfect match for my gun and they work just great together. If your answer is true, then you have succeeded where many others have failed. You have earned the right to skip the rest of this and go out and have fun busting targets right now. Most people will have to answer false. If you're one of them, we suggest you stay with us just a little longer.
Shotgun 101
When you pull the trigger, the primer in your shell lights off the gunpowder which converts to hot gas at high pressure in a very great hurry. The only release for the pressure is to push the wad and shot down the barrel. Along the way, that payload is squeezed through a forcing cone to get down to the normal barrel diameter. Then it gets squeezed again as it passes through the choke at the end of the barrel. From then on it only has to deal with super sonic shock waves, wind resistance, load breakup dynamics and birds that jump out of the way. All this happens in about 1/10 second.
A lot of complicated things happen when you fire your shotgun. We suggest the divide and conquer approach. Simplify the situation until you have it under control and then change things to "improve" performance. Our general approach to improving patterns is to very quickly home in on something that works pretty well and tune from there. This may require drastic changes at first just to get something that is stable enough that you can use it as a basis for further work.
The goal is to get an effective load pushed through the barrel toward your target with a good likelihood of a kill. Things like recoil reduction can be factored in later.
Since there are so many variables to consider, we first divide the discussion into a few catagories so we can focus a little better.
- The first category covers a shooter who has just acquired a new gun and needs to know how to use it to best advantage.
- The second catagory describes things you can do with factory ammo to close in on a combination that patterns well.
- The third addresses hand loads. There are an order of magnitude more choices here, and many chances to improve or screw-up the pattern.
- The fourth section talks about how you use the gun. It talks as much about the shotgunner as it does the shotgun and load. This section talks about improving your pattern reports by providing more accurate input to the reporting process.
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