Pattern Spread With A Cylinder Choke Shotgun?

[driz]

I bought one of those Turkish made pumps a couple years ago as a closet gun for things that go bump in the night. Very nice gun actually compared to the beater 870s I dragged around on the job for years. It’s got a nice fit and finish though lacking in only having a 4 shot magazine. Anyways it’s fine for its purpose. One big thing though is the width of the pattern. I think it’s a full open cylinder bore but that’s based only on comments owners made online. Man, at 100’ it’s about 5’ wide with standard 00 Buck hi brass. Am I expecting too much of this or what?
Nothing scientific about this brand experiment just shooting at the center section of a folded open furniture box with a center section about as wide as dirtbag. It’s been a long time since I shot silhouettes with the Bureau Of Prisons but I seem to remember why tighter patterns although we used #4 Buck which I’m starting to think really is a better choice

 

[Coyote3855]

Good that you actually patterned your shotgun. Many don't and no idea what the pattern will be. If its purpose is a home defense gun "for things that go bump in the night," the pattern at 100 feet/33 yards is mostly irrelevant if you consider distances inside your home. If the dirtbag is 35 yards away, you may not be justified in shooting him depending on the specifics of the situation. Other options at that range might be more appropriate including disengaging, seeking cover if he's arming, or switching to the ubiquitous AR15.

 

[dfariswheel]

The key to tighter patterns is ammo selection.
Just buy a number of brands/loads and pattern to find one your specific gun "likes".
It's not unusual to see two guns of the same brand and model that shoot very differently.

 

[Ranger99]

As the others said ^ ^ ^
Every gun needs to be fired with the
ammo you intend to shoot at the
range you intend to shoot it at

 

[243winxb]

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1002078191 Federal #4 buck with copper plated shot & plastic buffer will help patterns.
I use it in my 12 ga.

I tried another brand without copper plate & buffer, big difference in patterns.

Its also possible to have to much choke. It will deform the round ball & patterns will be large.

 

[Pete409]

I bought one of those Turkish made pumps a couple years ago as a closet gun for things that go bump in the night. Very nice gun actually compared to the beater 870s I dragged around on the job for years. It’s got a nice fit and finish though lacking in only having a 4 shot magazine. Anyways it’s fine for its purpose. One big thing though is the width of the pattern. I think it’s a full open cylinder bore but that’s based only on comments owners made online. Man, at 100’ it’s about 5’ wide with standard 00 Buck hi brass. Am I expecting too much of this or what?
Nothing scientific about this brand experiment just shooting at the center section of a folded open furniture box with a center section about as wide as dirtbag. It’s been a long time since I shot silhouettes with the Bureau Of Prisons but I seem to remember why tighter patterns although we used #4 Buck which I’m starting to think really is a better choice

At 33 yards (100 feet) you can expect a cylinder choke to throw a pattern of about 4 feet in diameter or perhaps slightly larger. It's unlikely you'll have a 33 yard shot inside your home. Try patterning the gun at about 20 feet distance and see what you think.

 

[jmr40]

Shotguns are close range weapons. 100' is the outer edge of what is practical anyway. The whole point of using a shotgun and buckshot is a wide pattern which increases the odds of getting one or more pellets into the target. As a general rule if I expect trouble inside my home (no chance of a shot over 15-20') I prefer a handgun to keep one hand free.

Outdoors out to about 20-25 yards (60-75') buckshot is a good choice. Beyond about 20-25 yards then it is time to use slugs or a rifle.

My preferred HD shotgun is a 21" 870 designed for turkey hunting. The short barrel takes interchangeable tubes. I keep an IC tube in it which does shoot a bit tighter pattern than a true cylinder bore. But it's still only good for around 25 yards. Beyond that a buckshot pattern is pretty thin.

 

[lemaymiami]

Here's a benchmark for comparison purposes... Dade county (the Miami area...) tested standard riot guns with 18" barrels and improved cylinder chokes with standard 2 3/4 00 buck rounds some years ago... They found that you could rely on the pattern spreading one inch per yard from the muzzle... That means at 7 yards (21 feet) the pattern should be 7"). I used to tell my officers that "if you're not aiming with that shotgun - you won't be hitting."
Cylinder bore will have a wider dispersal but not by a lot in my opinion. The advice to actually pattern your shotgun with your intended ammo at very specific measured distances is right on the money... Inside most houses I doubt you'd ever have any distances greater than 30 feet for defensive purposes. Nothing beats a shotgun with 00buck for close quarters work in my opinion. It's a one shot fight ender if you do your part...

 

[I6turbo]

Ammo selection can make even more difference in shotgun pattern spread than choke. For example, here's Federal Flite Control 00 Buck shot vs. Rio 00 Buck (which doesn't have a shot cup type wad), both at 15 yards from the same Maverick 88 with Cylinder Bore. The big hole at 5 o'clock in the Flite Control pattern on the right is from the wad, of course.

The above image is a screen grab from a Buffalo Outdoors video https://www.youtube.com/@buffalosoutdoors/videos . I've seen the exact same thing in my own testing.

Another thing to note from the image above -- which I've also found in my own testing -- is that cylinder bore tens to REALLY spread the buckshot wide if there's no shot cup type wad. Too wide, IMO. Choke helps tighten up the pattern from these loads a LOT. More discussion here: https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/buckshot-or-buckshot.919037/post-12632966

 

[driz]

Thanks for the education on buckshot that I never got from the agencies. i never realized how much effect a plastic shot cup had on spread. . Thanks

 

[starnbar]

Depending on the type of varmint you might encounter in the middle of the night a wide pattern may be beneficial if the intruders are wearing body armor. Just a thought to consider or keep the shot low for the legs.

 

[eastbank]

i use cyl chokes at 3-4 stations at out sporting clays games, at those stations the shots are at the targets(two at once) realy moving in differents directions. and i only have time to swing and shoot, not much time for thinking. the distances i shoot at are about 15-20 yards at most, like shooting at snipe. the cly choke allows me to clean those stations most of the time, with 1-1/8 oz #8 shot.

 

[PapaG]

Just to be a jerk, cylinder is properly called cylinder bore. It is the absence of choke.
But who cares. It is the most perplexing boring to handle. I might have mentioned it before but some manufacturers did put a few thousandths constriction in their “cylinder” bored guns to stop the donut holes. I’ve had two Winchesters and one Remington so constructed.

 

[I6turbo]

Just to be a jerk, cylinder is properly called cylinder bore. It is the absence of choke.
But who cares. It is the most perplexing boring to handle. I might have mentioned it before but some manufacturers did put a few thousandths constriction in their “cylinder” bored guns to stop the donut holes. I’ve had two Winchesters and one Remington so constructed.

My Dad's old Model 11 is a Cylinder Bore. I don't know if the Model 11 was one of the "cylinder" guns with a little bit of choke, but that gun always held better, more uniform patterns at longer distances than one would expect. It would bring down doves and such at distances competitive with Modified choke guns.

 

[PapaG]

My Dad's old Model 11 is a Cylinder Bore. I don't know if the Model 11 was one of the "cylinder" guns with a little bit of choke, but that gun always held better, more uniform patterns at longer distances than one would expect. It would bring down doves and such at distances competitive with Modified choke guns.

I dont know either but the bores of that era were made to shoot card and fiber wad shells and "new" plastic, shot encapsulating wads protect the shot so that it stays round and produces fewer "fliers".
I had a military model 11 riot gun and it did quite well though not modified well. Sounds like a keeper. You know how to set the friction rings for light and heavy loads, right?

 

[Steve in NC]

As shown in post #9 above, fire some Federal flightcontrol buckshot loads out of that cyl bore!

My brand new RemArms 870 with 18 1/2" open bore with put all 9 pellets into approx 10" pattern at 30 yds. My son's older 870 police cyl bore will put the same flight control 00 into a 6-8" wad at 50 yds! That thing is a rifle for all intents and purposes.

Any other buckshot loads are OK in both guns with some better than others. But after watching 3 days of shotgun training classes with all ages of shooters, all brands of ammo, and anything from field grade Mossbergs to M4... that Federal flight control wad works the best in every shotgun we fired it in. Some better than others, but that FC stuff was hands down the best pattern in all combo's.

Steve

 

[lemaymiami]

Flite control rounds do exactly what they're designed to do - provide a smaller pattern at greater range to make any shotgun perform better when it's all on the line... There are situations though where ordinary basic rounds are probably a better choice -particularly at close quarters, very close quarter - say under 7 yards - or even at doorway distances since a bit of spread is handy if you're not quite on target (or your target insists on not standing still...).

We never had Flite Control rounds available in my era on the street they hadn't been invented then- so in that time I carried a mix of standard rounds and slugs. Today I keep a mix of ordinary rounds, as well as Flite Control, and slugs for my only shotgun - but then all of my experience with a shotgun as an adult involved possible two legged targets...

 

[gwpercle]

Thanks for the education on buckshot that I never got from the agencies. i never realized how much effect a plastic shot cup had on spread. . Thanks

Be sure to try #4 Buck ... for home defense ... the range will be short and more pellets seem to pattern better .
After much shooting , #4 Buck is in my bedside 12 ga. pump , cylinder bored and it patterns well out to 35 yards ( 100 feet) with good plated and buffered shot ammo ... those 27 pellets made an impressive pattern .
Gary

 

[I6turbo]

I dont know either but the bores of that era were made to shoot card and fiber wad shells and "new" plastic, shot encapsulating wads protect the shot so that it stays round and produces fewer "fliers".
I had a military model 11 riot gun and it did quite well though not modified well. Sounds like a keeper. You know how to set the friction rings for light and heavy loads, right?

I do know how it's supposed to be set for the various loads (I also have an Auto 5), but for about 50+ years it was in some single unknown-to-me setting but didn't malfunction with any of the many different loads we shot through it. So, it was probably on the field/light setting, but I'm not sure.

 

[doubleh]

Somewhat late to this but years ago I spent a couple of quail seasons hunting with a single shot 12 guage that had it's barrel cut to 24 inches that I had taken in trade for building a fore end for a rifle. Paper shells were still available then with no shot cup and out to about 25 yards all you had to do was point in in the general direction of the bird to get it. Ammo with shot cups required quite a bit more precision in pointing.

 

[luzyfuerza]

Try a variety of different ammo types at different distances.

Here's an example of results from this kind of testing using six different ammo types, in one of my shotguns:

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...ral-tactical-00-buckshot.895808/post-12077200

And yes, FliteControl is in a class by itself.

 

[jmorris]