[Hammer1]

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In Bob Brister's "Shotgunning - The Art and Science"...

Brister describes the poorer performance of soft lead shot in shotgun patterns.

If I recall correctly, Brister reports that hard shot tightens up patterns dramatically compared to the exact same gun, choke, and load with the only change being the softness of the lead shot.

Since many of the local trap shooters either shoot promotional factory loads or reloads with soft lead shot, are they really getting modified choke performance from the full chokes which they insist are required for trap ?

Would a modified choke with similar soft lead shot loads perform more like an improved-cylinder choke ?

If they shot the hard lead shot instead of the soft lead shot would a modified choke be more acceptable ?

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[g7777777]

That book is getting dated now- great work but are the wads and hulls so much better now that the hardness of the shot less important?

Regards from Iowa

Gene

 

[short shucker]

Most shot deformation happens upon the shell firing. The sudden acceleration deforms a lot more shot than does the choke.

Gene is spot on about the info in that book getting dated. Like everything else, technology has made most of that info a thing of the past.

ss

 

[twopipe]

For some reason, my 1 oz handloads with Lawrence hard shot seemed to smoke targets better than the Federal promo loads with 1-1/8 oz. I always figured it was better quality shot,( but I'm not going to count pellets on a pattern sheet to find out ) !

 

[cubancigar2000]

Trapnpy1957 - too funny. My only comment is that wads are more important than anuthing today and they are far superior to what they used to be. I have been able to make all kinds of different patterns simply by changing wads and using all other compnents the same each time. Sooooooo here comes Neil for some scientific data. Our late froedn Pat would have been on this one also. RIP Pat

 

[shot410ga]

A modified choke with my homemade one ounce 8.5's seems to obliterate targets better than factory made 8.5's using an improved modified choke.......Hummmmmm, something to consider this winter. Hummmmmmmm

 

[Hammer1]

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Getting enough sleep has never been my strong point.

But not currently in the regular time zones. When I made the OP the time was right to be awake. No such excuse now.

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[Hap MecTweaks]

"Is a full choke effectively a modified ?"

During the time frame that only soft chilled shot was available to reloaders, yes, your full choked gun could throw extremely erratic patterns depending on velocity. That's one of the reasons Arnold Reigger shot a 2-3/4 dr load when he dominated trap shooting!

Todays cheap factory shells at least have some antimony which makes them better than what Arnold Reigger had. The hardest lead shot in premium ammo with the proper wads make shells of old look extremely bad when patterning.

I haven't seen any soft chilled lead without antimony for years! Even the crap sold by Peru has some antimony added, not much but some. One more point to research is when did reloading shotshells gain the most popularity for competing in ATA shooting? It may surprise you.

Hap

 

[zzt]

Hammer1, I used to do a lot of patterning with all kinds of shot. Eagle shot is softer than Lawrence chilled shot (2%). I never liked it because it came out of the bag deformed. Even so, using it never made my full chokes pattern like a Modified, even with #8 shot which was actually smaller than US 8s. The softer shot is more open, but not by that amount.