patterning help

[jvjohnson]

Brought my sx3 out goose hunting last weekend and was shoting 3.5 feds high dens bb threw a modifided choke. I had several times where their would be a goose at about 40 yards decoying and i would have the bead right on him and fire all 3 shots only to see him fly away crippled and land half mile away.Had a cupple shots about 15 yards closer and droped them on the spot. I know i need to patteren it but i just havent had time. What are some of the set up's you use. and maybe some tips on patterning.

sorry so long winded it was just really frustrating.

[dan z]

15 yards is almost a third of the distance so I would hope it would be a kill shot use the full choke for longer shots just my opinion

[7outof10]

well just go and get a cupple pieces of carbord and set them up with sticks or something so that they stand up and shoot at them one shot only and then go and look at it for holes that you could fit a goos or duck in and just see how spreed out the bbs are and use the shell that you would use goose hunting i have seen people use field load when trying to pattering and then say that should be good for goose hunting lol

[7outof10]

and when you shoot at the carbord do it at different ranges 15,30.50 and then you will really see what that choke can really do

[carpshooterdeluxe]

i patterned federal hi density (3 different 3" loads) at 50 yards and had under 50% pattern in a 30" circle. through a patternmaster extended ported choke, super x2 was the gun. 3" federal hhv steel 1's patterned much better in my gun at that range.

[Farley]

When patterning my SX3 I noticed that when I put the bead on the center of the target the majoirty of the bb's were above centerline of the target. So now I put the bead just below the bird and hit them every time.........well maybe not every time The best thing to do is pattern it though. You do find out a lot of stuff you didnt know before.

[jvjohnson]

well i went out and tryed to do some patterning today

this is my first time doing it and it was on an old paint board. i took 35 strides away and did my testing from their.

i used #2 and #6 son of heavy shot 3", with a mod and full chokes. i did not notice a big diffrence between the chokes. could never really find a center to the pattern thrie were marks every 1.5 to 2.5 inches apart inside about a 2.5 foot circle. i did shoot some blackcloud and it was a little better but still the kind of thing.

i dont know if im doing something wrong if im to far away or if its just the shels or maby the gun?

[Tom7227]

Search using 'patterning a shotgun' and you'll find three or four sites that give you the info. You need to do it with a cretain degree of precision so that you come up with useful info. Knowing the number of pellets, consistent range etc. I would be awfully surprised if a full choke worked well with steel shot.

Put a bullseye in the middle of your 30 inch circle and aim at it consistently. A friend's $800 shotgun was high 4 and left 3 every time he shot the top barrel.