Pancake shot?

[Big D]

Met a young (well, 45 is young to many of us) man who claimed to be an Army retiree who spent the first 5 years of his service as part of the Army shotgun team. He sure did seem to know his way around a M42 today.

I was commenting to him about my Fox with .044 choke in each barrel which makes it a bit dicey for skeet. He said "You should try my pancake shot". What he described was putting shot thru a pair of rollers similar to an old washing machine, and flattening the shot into pancakes. He claimed it was the ultimate in spreader loads. He apperantly has a jeweler friend who has a roller setup for making gold or silver sheets who lets him run his shot thru. Has anyone else heard of this? He claims "the shot flies like throwing a shingle".

[OH Osthaus]

well, how far can you throw a shingle?

and toss a handful of them a couple times and see how consistent the pattern is

[charlie cleveland]

new one on me..you know winchester had some type of ireglar shaped shot a while back.. i bet a fellow could take a lite hammer and flatten enough to load up a coupla rounds to try out... charlie

[Kensal Rise]

This is an old technique to open patterns. The idea goes back at least as far as the 1950s... maybe even the 1930s. But "flat shot" doesn't meter well. Shot dividers were an easier solution... and the stuff flies more true.

[Dean Romig]

Some small cartridge companies produce ammo with deformed and/or cut shot. One that comes to mind is "The Square Shot Co.". Theirs is produced from sheets of lead cut into cubes. I think flattening round shot would produce certainly wider, but inconsistent, patterns but I've never tried the stuff.

[James L. Martin]

Orvis sold spreader loads with flat shot ,I still have a box or 2, I think it was 10 or more years ago. I found it really sliced up the bird. The best I have found is Polywad, either there loaded shells or reloads using there polywad.