Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Graziano
I'm glad you brought up the topic of barrel regulation. However, shotguns are not pattern tested with lasers and a lead sled. That is for rifles. The resulting patterns are not reflective of how the gun shoots in your hands. There are plenty of pattern testing protocols you can google. I'd recommend following one of them and noting the results. You'll be standing, shouldering the gun as in the field and firing lead. This is why shotgunners spend or used to spend so much time and effort on fit. A shotgun may shoot for you differently than it does for others. Using lasers and a lead sled won't tell you much.
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Joe,
I think you missed the point that I was patterning the guns for stationary targets such as a turkey standing still at forty yards and shooting the gun as one shoots a rifle, and thus the lead sled to make sure I was holding it on the target (I did hold the gun as tightly as if I was shooting it by itself). The patterns were way off at that distance for most guns, probably indicating they were regulated for a shorter distance. So if I aim at the target, and the pattern is already off by quite a bit, and I pull it even slightly, I miss or cripple. So it is important to know exactly where the pattern is centered. I think next year I will laser each gun, shoot some patterns to confirm it, and then put a small taped on label to tell me that at forty yards for instance, this gun shoots six inches to the right at forty, four inches high at forty, etc.
On flying birds, some guns one shoots well, some not so good. I took the Fox AE Monday, got my limit on far too many shells. The next day I took a new to me vent-rib Model 12 Winchester, the first time I had ever shot it, and I shot twice as good as with the double.