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Daniel
The steel plate works good, if you drill a hole in centre around 5/8 or so it gives you a spot to aim for. I dont recomend using steel shot though because of bouncing back.
Heading down to Bonita Springs tomorrow, got to be warmer than here.
Take Care Pedler

Daniel, the one I regularly use is at Charlie Boswell's Comp-N-Choke shop. It get shot thousands of times a year by customers trying out different constrictions to see which will pattern best in their turkey guns. Most of these are maxxed out 3 1/2" loads, fired at no more than forty yards, many at thirty. The plate is 1/4" diamond plate steel with the back (smooth) side toward the shooter. It has been in constant use for at least six years and is not deformed or bowed at all.

P.S. Never shoot steel loads at a steel pattern plate, too great a danger of bounce back.

Our board is about 4' H x 8' W made out of 3/16" metal plate mounted on angle iron with a triangular footed base. Here's an easy way to scribe a circle through the grease or white wash on a metal pattern plate. It's used mostly for P.O.I. gun fitting but could be used to tally up density within a 30" circle if one wished to take the time.
First, drill a hole in the center of the plate area..3/8" will do. If the plate is large enough, multiple holes can be set up side to side or in four quadrants.

Using a piece of flat bar stock about 36" long (aluminum works well), drill a hole in one end and attach a pin or smooth shank bolt a shade smaller than the diameter of the center hole in the plate. The bar will rotate in a circle around this center hole with the pin holding it in place.

In the other end of the bar drill a hole and attach another pin Use a longer pin that will go through the flat bar with one end acting as a handle and the other end(pointed)acting as a scribe.

Just rotate the bar in a circular motion and you have scribed your target circle. Remove the scribe bar and use the center hole as your target within the circle.

Using a paint roller, apply grease or white wash again, insert bar and scribe a new circle and shoot. It's much quicker and easier to use than paper or cardboard once the fabrication is done!

Sharps,
I do not mean to be rude, but correct procedure is to shoot a pattern then scribe your circle centred on the part of the pattern with the greatest density.
NOT draw a circle and then shoot at it.

I take large piece of paper (roll of PO packing paper for 99c from BigLots works nicely). I spray small orange cicle from cheap BigLots spray paint can and proceed to shoot at it at 30 to 40 paces. I look at patterns to make sure there is no holes larger than human hand at ranges I intent to hunt at.
Counting holes is for employees of English gunmakers who charge 50K or more for their guns. Look, that 700 hours x $50/per hr has to come from someplace! It's cute how they make some think there is "Little Druid" with hand file shaping that action & locks from solid forgings.

Salopian - I think it depends on your purpose. If you want to establish POI, shoot at an established circle. If you want ot verify pattern density, shoot, then draw the circle.

I had to go check it out since my last post.....My clubs' patterning "plate" (as they call it) is 1/4" mild steel 50"X50" with an additional circular 2.5" piece welded in the center for aiming. Why it's that particular size is unknown to me. One shoots it and then paints it and then repeats. The plate is welded to 2 1/2" black pipe uprights which are welded to 10"X 30" channels about 1/4" thick (for feet on the thing)...all this keeps the plate center about 5' off the ground. I think it weighs about 9 tons.....We also had (until it got shot up too much)what they called a Patterning "Board" which was mostly like half a sheet of 1/2" ply wood suspended between two 4"X4" posts planted in the ground....I've been told by those fellows that know such things "that the steel one was for POI indications" and that the wooden one was to hang a piece of paper on to determine pattern density....I sure hope they fix the wooden one come spring....oh Yeah! I forgot that those same fellows pointed out that using paper on the steel plate gets a lot of bounce backs...Which I gather is not acceptable......fwiw....Art