Since I’ve been a kid, I've been shooting at paper to determine the pattern percentages at 40 yards and sometimes 20 yards if it is a grouse gun. I know its tedious to some but I enjoy it and it tells the whole story better than a dial indicator or barrel measurement tool. I pattern all my hunting guns with different size shot that I might shoot with a particular gun. I have a log where I keep the stats. It's how I found out that #2 patterned horribly with any of my duck and goose guns and that #3's patterned well with all my waterfowl guns. It's how I found out that the old pigeon load of 3 1/4-dram equiv. patterns much better than the typical 3 ¾ - dram equiv. loads commonly used with 1 ¼ of shot in a 12 bore. It's how I learned not to use 00 buck and use #1 buck instead. I get a ton of valuable information on all of my hunting guns. Patterning guns is the only way to determine how they will shoot with different loads and shot. Individual barrels handle some shot size much better than other. No two are exactly alike. Patterning a gun is the only way to get this kind of important information.
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