Tested some buckshot loads today...pics inside

I've had a Maverick 88 12 Ga for something like 15 years. It currently sports an 18" Mossberg barrel with fixed cylinder choke. I've added a green fiber optic front sight. As its role is a truck/closet/last ditch HD gun, I thought I'd assemble all the buckshot loads I had and do some pattern testing today with IPSC targets that are just shy of 2' tall x 18" wide. For each target, I took 2 shots from 10 yards in the standing position. For those of you not used to shotgun patterns, the large holes are from the shotshell wad.

Wolf Power Buckshot 2-3/4" 00 Buck 9-Pellet


Remington Managed Recoil 2-3/4" 00 Buck 8-Pellet. Only load where the wad didn't make it to the target at to yds.


Fiocchi Reduced Recoil 2-3/4" 00 Buck 9-Pellet


Hornady TAP FPD 2-3/4" 00 Buck


Federal Premium Personal Defense 2-3/4" 00 Buck. Disregard the wads and you can see two silver-dollar sized holes blown out of the target at this range. Impressive.


The Federal was so good that I stepped back to 20 yds and fired a single shot. Still quite impressive.






Lessons learned:

• There is less variation in patterns at 10 yds than I had assumed. While the Wolf patterned the worst (widest), a 10 yd shot would still put all pellets in a broadside torso at that distance.
• The Federal stuff patterns amazingly well in my gun. Even at 20 yds, a center shot on a torso would be feasible.
• Everything patterned high. A center-mass hold will work well in this gun, and put everything in the center/upper chect of a torso at 10 yds if it came to that. I could probably solder on a set of ghost rings and have an aligned POA/POI, but no plans for that at this time.
• I will be buying several boxes of Federal for this gun.

Anyway - maybe this gives you shotgun guys some ideas for laods to try. Shotguns have been declining in popularity as HD guns with the influx of black rifles, but they're still reliable, simple and cheap. A good 12 Ga pump is a great thing to have around.

 

Thanks for the info, I've been wanting to do this with my 500, mine groups well with Remington but haven't tried anything else. My 500 is my go to gun, the AR only comes out For protection duty when I'm camping but still my shotgun is my first choice.

 

Very nice.

 

Love my Ithaca 37 DS Police Special. It's circa 1968 and works like a champ. I don't keep 00 buck in it anymore, kids,dogs,cats and neighbors so I switched to a more friendly, but all the same closed casket shell.

 

Cool pictures, Anything with the Flite Control wade will pattern well in any gun You should be able to keep 8" patterns or less out to 25 yards. The Hornadys use a variation of the flite control wad and Speer and Federal are basically the same with different names. I agree that the shotgun is the most underated long gun today. 437 grains for most slugs and I think 9 pellet 00 is around 450 grains ( I dont remember)Anything inside of 100 yards is fair game for me.