Is an almost whole hand sized pattern with an improved cylinder remchoke(palm size with carlson modified) at 5-7 yards with reduced recoil federal personal defense 9 pellet 00 buck an indicator the flite control wad is getting stripped in the barrel(20" remington rifle sight cut for chokes, all factory.)
Same barrel with ic choke gives palm sized patterns at the same distance with estate 9 pellet reduced recoil & remington managed recoil 8 pellet loads and slightly smaller patterns when the modified tube is installed.
I’d guess at 5 to 7 yards your are patterning on cardboard. At that range the wad should probably be most of the group, most of the time you won’t be able to count 9 individual pellets. At 15 yards on metal the group ought to be around fist sized to a little larger - all 9 should be on the head of a pepper popper. We actually had to change our basic shotgun course when the flight control wads were introduced - too many folks were shooting 100’s while making fundamental gun mounting errors, the patterns were that tight.
Yeah I was expecting the pattern to be wad size at that distance based on the reviews I had seen, but no luck there. Shooting on paper with distinct separate pellet hits in addition to the hole made by the wad.
The Remington bore requires more effort pushing/pulling when cleaning than my Mossberg does so beginning to wonder if the 870 bore is just super tight and stripping the wads off. Will have to try the Federal loads in the 500 barrel to verify the shells aren’t the issue.
On the upside, the 870 barrel is great with slugs and has good patterns with regular low recoil buckshot so all is not a loss I guess.
In nearly all of the 870s I’ve tested you have to get to at least 10 yards before the shot is really distinguishable from the wad. It’s essentially one hole until you get to ten yards.
This is our issued duty round for shotguns. At 5-7 yds, it’s very hard to tell the difference between OO buck and slug, using issued 870’s with cylinder bore chokes.
We have over 1,000 officers to qualify with shotgun, using about 20 range guns to do so. No signs of the type of patterns you are describing with cylinder bore 18" Remington’s. Is it possible that some part of your screw in choke is catching on the wad and stripping it?
Funny that I ran across this thread - just shot a bunch of this on Friday. Here’s 5 rounds at a measured 7 yards. The small hole to the right is not a buckshot hole - not sure what happened there, I must have shot a single 22 round through it on a previous trip. Anyway - you can see the lack of separation in the pattern. Looks like a slug at this distance.
Shots are out of an 18" cylinder bore Mossberg 500 barrel.
If you think you might be loosing your wad in the barrel or sooner that you should I would try polishing the bore. it cant hurt and in the end the gun will be WAY easier to clean anyway. It made a difference in my Mossberg, But I just did it to make it easier to clean. in theory it “Could” work.
Tried them in an 18.5" 500 with IC Choke and got the wad size pattern so apparently the 870 slug barrel is the issue.
Somewhat strange, both shotguns did about the same with Remington managed recoil 8 pellet buckshot. The Mossberg even patterned it the same as the flute control at 15 yards.
The 870 barrel is mirror bright(much shinier than the 500 actually) and both get a mild scotch brite on a dowel chucked in a drill after shooting.
For whatever reason, the bore on the 870 is tighter. Both feel the same pulling a patch through their chambers, but past that point the 870 takes a lot more effort to pull.
In that case, as much of a PITA it is going to be I might consider calling the manufacturer and see if they will fix it.that is if it is in warranty. good luck whatever you decided to do.
Wondered about that and thought the thread could have been cut off center, but I can feel that the “inlet” end of the choke wasn’t overlapping in to the “outlet” end of the bore. I don’t think it is this particular ic tube since nothing looks/feels wrong and the patterns are consistent with various loads. Doesn’t really feel like the choke gets tighter when the patch passes in to it when cleaning either.
Some shotguns just don’t like the flight control wads. None of the shotguns I used to have shot them any better then they shot the Winchester Super X/Mil-Spec type 00 buck rounds but shot regular Remington, Winchester and Federal reduced recoil in a pattern just over an inch at seven yards.
Got some new shotguns now. Need to find some flight control was rounds and try them again.
And that is why I shoot different loads in different guns, pistols, rifles and shotguns, 1% of guns don’t like certain loads or the load doesn’t like the gun.
But I have shot #1B and 00 out of both cylinder bore and with choke tubes and all have performed amazingly well. The best pattern I get is from #1B a 28" barrel with screw in mod choke out of a Beretta 390/300.
That is exactly what’s happening. At that range you should be getting patterns the size of the silver dollar. I tried full choke and it strips the wad. You want no choke at all. Choke works against FCW.
I get maybe 12-15" at 25 meters. I have “cylinder bore” choke. It’s about half the size of non-FCW loads. Cheap 00B from Wally World have patterns that disintegrate at about 25m, with some pellets not even making it to paper.
From my experience FC behaves differently with IC vs. C chokes. IC “opens up” the shot grouping. There is a youtube video about it.
A lot of help I am…
I think I watched the video too and was wondering about the reviewer calling it a cylinder bore since that is not exactly a common screw in choke and is really unusual for a fixed choke versus IC screw in tubes and fixed barrels.
