Pattern testing my SF with Boss,TM and Salt Creek ammo.

[fox-admin]

After reading Jeff's article in the last newsletter I decided to pattern my Super Fox with four different shells to see if my gun printed patterns similar to Jeff's. As you may recall Jeff had open patterns from Boss ammo in his SF. (57.6% and 54.2%) My gun has 32" barrels, bores at .738/.738 chokes at .049/.050 and 3" chambers factory original as measured by Frank Srebro. All patterns shot at 40yards, pellet counts inside a 30" circle. Shot from a benchrest on bags. As you can see from the pattern boards my SF shoots patterns a little of the the left at 40yards.

1. Boss 1 1/4oz #4 copper plated plastic wad, no filler 56.6%, 1350fps- pattern dense to the left, light to the right
2. Boss 1 1/4oz #5 copper plated fiber wad, no filler 78.7%, 1275fps- pattern dense to the left light to the right
3. Salt Creek 1 1/8oz #4 plastic wad with filler material 82.9%, 1300fps more centered but uneven distribution(this is a low pressure load of about 6100psi)
4. Kent Tungsten Matrix #3 plastic wad no filler 58.8%, 1400fps pattern dense to the left light to the right
I got very similar results as Jeff with the Boss copper plated bismuth and plastic wad. The Kent TM also patterned very poorly. It may be that the very tight chokes in a SF do not pattern well with some loads.

[Silvers]

Great work Craig. Thank you. Yes the extra tight S-F chokes can be finicky with modern loads.

Just one comment. Typically, shooting 2-3/4” shells in a 3-inch chambered 12 gauge will result in about (one) choke constriction lesser pattern in the circle at 40 yards. That might be 5-10% less depending on the shells and velocity. frank

[Jeff S]

Very interesting, and very thorough test results. Thanks for sharing because I wasn’t trying to find fault with Boss, I was just saying that they didn’t work well in my gun. It’s interesting that the ones with the plastic wad performed poorly. Does the wad (cup) cause a slightly tighter fit as the shot travels through the choke? Also, for what it’s worth, Morris Baker indicated that 1350 is too fast for bismuth. I don’t know, I’m simply “sharing”. Bottom line, it doesn’t hurt to test a few rounds.

[Jim McKee]

Pattern testing can show some interesting results as displayed with the Boss # 4 and # 5 size shot loads listed above.
While it takes time to test, the results can and often do assist the shooter.
Thanks for showing this to us.
Jim

[fox-admin]

Jeff I'm amazed we got the same results shooting the Boss shells with a plastic wad. I hope other owners of SF repeat our pattern tests. Jeff I will send you some fiber wad Boss shells if you would be willing to pattern them LMK,

[Jeff S]

Craig, thanks for the generous offer. Yes, I would love to take two sample shots with the fiber wad Boss shells.

[Stan Hillis]

I patterned the fiber wad, 2 3/4" BOSS (#5) loads a couple years ago in my 3" chambered SuperFox and in my 3" chambered LC Smith. The Smith has very tight constrictions, too. I got patterns consistently in the 68-70 % range with both guns.

[Silvers]

There has to be an explanation as to why the polymer wad 4-shot Boss shotshell was significantly less efficient than Boss with 5-shot/fiber wads but the answer isn't obvious. Questions to Jeff and Craig, I assume you opened both 1-1/4 ounce shells and did actual pellet counts before shooting them? Did both pellet sizes look reasonably round or was one or the other more oblong or irregular? Did you measure actual pellet diameter averages and if so, what were they and did either have a wide range (from smallest to largest diameters)? frank

[loggy]

Looks like they would all kill a duck.

[fox-admin]

I opened samples of each shell and did an actual pellet count I did not measure the pellets diameter. The boss pellets looked very consistent in roundness and size, as did the TM. The Salt Creek bismuth pellets were much less round and less consistent in size, very similar to what I have purchased in the past to handload. When I cleaned my gun there was noticeable flakes of bismuth and copper. Almost all the pellet holes in the cardboard appear round which indicated to me the pellets suffered little fracturing going down the barrel.

Jeff I will put 2 fiber shells in FedEx tomorrow, I counted 199 pellets in the load.

[Jeff S]

Frank, I did not count pellets.

[Stan Hillis]

I counted the pellets in an unfired shell before I patterned them a couple years ago, but cannot remember the count. I think I saved the pattern sheets and could do "reverse math" to determine it. I'll look for the pattern sheets this afternoon and see. It's intriguing to me.

[Jeff S]

Guys, I think this is an interesting and educational discussion and I hope we keep it going. I need to dash off to visit some grandchildren, so for now I need to keep it brief. I have inserted a couple lines from the memo I received from Aaron at BOSS. See below.

Jeff,

I apologize I didn't see this email before responding to the last with the picture of the fragmenting. Different loads have different recipes. We have found that im modified to full really work best with our loads. Sometimes if you constrict it too much you will see some fragmenting from being too tight. The shot is made then it goes through the copper coating process. Glad to help anyway, I can.

Thanks,
Aaron


So as you can see, BOSS realizes that their pellets will fragment when used in an "extra full" choke. When we shoot BOSS copper plated bismuth through a Fox (or any brand shotgun) with extra full chokes, we are asking the "ammo" to do something it wasn't designed to do. The pellets fragment, and then become "fliers" thus creating a poor pattern. I'm sure that the BOSS ammo will work great in my Super Black Eagle with modified choke.

Jeff

[Jeff S]

It sure is fun to dig into this.

First of all, I'm amazed that Craig's results were so close to mine. A slang term for shotguns is "scatterguns" for obvious reasons. When I take multiple test patterns with the same ammo, the results vary because shotguns are not "precise". The fact that Craig and I got the same results is pretty cool. Also, I remember "Kimber" (Don) mentioned that he experienced a mediocre pattern.

When I stumbled on to this situation, I was just doing a casual study of my guns, so perhaps I wasn't as thorough as I should have been. Shame on me, so let me add to this saga. Frank asked a couple of good questions. #1. Did I count the pellets. No, I did not. I went to the Boss webpage and they stated that there were 238 pellets per shell. Today I opened up my one remaining shell and counted 246 pellets (twice). This increases the denominator which would bring my pattern of 57.6% down to 55.7%.

Next Frank asked if the pellets look good? Are they consistent? Are there abnormalities? Let's take a look. Here is a picture of the pellets in a Tupperware dish. Notice the variations in color (thin plating?)

I selected one pellet and measured it 3 times, in different orientations.

This is getting big, so I'll post and continue.

[Jeff S]

The saga continues......

Here is a pellet that I refer to as the "pancake".

Now, a perfect "sphere" should fly true. An irregular pellet will probably not fly true. We’ve been lead to believe that copper plating is a good thing, but if the process leaves a drip on the pellet, it’s not good. Please study the next two pictures.

In all fairness to the very nice people at BOSS, we might find similar results if we opened up shells from the other manufactures of non-toxic ammo.

Craig took this study further than I did. He compared a wider variety of ammo, and got some very interesting results. From my perspective, and what I observed coming out of my Super Fox, the wide pattern was caused by pellets crumbling (fragmenting) as they were traveling through the choke. No doubt in my mind. I also noticed that Craig's pattern with the fiber wad BOSS was pretty good. I suspect, but cannot prove, that it's the result of the slower speed, not the wad (I could be wrong). Speeds of 1350 MIGHT work in a full choke, but not in an extra full choke. It seems that at some point, the tightness of the choke and the speed of the pellets "converge" to fragment the pellets and ruin the effectiveness of the load.

Discussing this via the forum is a little awkward. I propose that we gather at Hausmann's in June. Bring a patterning board, cigars and some "Brooklyn Handicap" and we'll figure it out. In the meantime, I'll use Morris Baker's 1200 FPS Bismuth. Yesterday it worked quite well on the woodies. (And by all means, test your gun, with your ammo and see what works best for YOU.) Cheers!