My 32", 3" chambered HE Fox has been patterned with BOSS Cu plated 1 1/4 oz. loads of #5s. These are the loads they don't advertise much, but are lower pressure shells loaded without plastic shot cups, but rather with fiber wads. I was surprised to see only 67-68% patterns with it. Since i was shooting at a grease plate and taking pics of the patterns to do pellet counts later I didn't notice any copper fragments or other evidence of fragmentation of pellets. But, that may well have been happening. I knew going in to expect lower percentage patterns with the loads with no shot cups, and the lady at BOSS I talked with had also told me to expect that.
I have not patterned the BOSS, higher pressure, shot cup loads yet in it, but will definitely use paper to do so and will look closely for evidence of fragmentation. BTW, my 3" chambered LC Smith pigeon gun patterned the same lower pressure BOSS loads only slightly tighter at nearly 70%.
I have used the BOSS shells for two years in my HE, on ducks, and have used hand loaded bismuth in it for many more years than that. As a casual observation, I have noticed no difference in the killing ability of the two. But again, that is not empirical evidence, just a casual observation. Very interesting stuff.
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