doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com choke. patterning reality vs choke measurement

What we DO know, Rocketman--and what Dr. Jones didn't seem to know, from the parts of his book that I read--is that quite a number of single pellet strikes, and even some 2 pellet strikes, do NOT result in breaks. That being true, how does one explain the 100 straights shot at American skeet and 16 yard trap if a significant number of those breaks are supposed to be of the single pellet variety, according to his computer models? Sorry, but I can't get that to "compute". Fails the logic test. And it fails the "let's go pick up unbroken targets with one or two holes" test as well.

What Dr. Jones needs to identify is, in a particular clay target game (say, American 16 yard trap or American skeet) how often a single pellet strike results in a break vs a failure to break. Yes, he admits the obvious: not all single pellet strikes result in a break. But I think many of us here reached the same conclusion, which is that he believes it's much more likely to result in a break than we do. And of course there's the issue of targets struck by a single pellet that show no visible break, but do shatter when they hit the ground. Which means even more of them fail to break from a single pellet than we can demonstrate by picking up unbroken targets with one hole (or more).

Pondering the unanswerable. Mr. Brown is obviously on the track. WAY too many variables to even pretend to have answers. Seems like that are just far too many masturbatory activities associated w/ shotgun "science". I wonder if that tells us anything about the "researchers" or their so-called results?

Best Bet - pattern your gun w/ whatever and satisfy yourself that it shoots where you want. Practice however suits you until you feel you can break/kill w/ whatever level of performance you are looking for.

Lotta whatevers?? You betcha. It's a shotgun. Get over it.

HTH

have a day

Dr.WtS

Don, I understand, and respect, that you are an engineer and place much greater emphasis on empirical evidence than I might. I have never attempted to analyze this issue in order to come up with data that might help all shooters. The fact is, with the vast majority of us, what works for us individually, and the certainty we have that it is right for us, is what is important.

Here is my un-scientific evidence, and it is admittedly anecdotal. But, I have 110% faith in it. In my quest to "master" sporting clays I was attempting to use the amount of choke that would give me the highest probability of hitting the target with enough pellet strikes to effect a break. The vast majority of my breaks were just that, breaks. Into several pieces. I plateaued in my climb upwards through the classes, hung up at A class. I had developed a flinch, and I was frustrated.

Due to a series of decisions, at about the same time, I went from a MX-8 with choke tubes to one with fixed .020" chokes. I went from 1 oz. loads to 1 1/8 oz. loads. My scores immediately improved and I started back getting punches. My flinch went 99% away. And, I started smoking the targets. I rapidly garnered punches, punching into M class at the 2010 U. S. Open.

I KNOW, that I know, that I know, that I have a greater probability of breaking any given target, regardless of it's speed or closeness to me, with the tighter chokes. I also can absolutely guarantee that ...... The more pellets you put on a clay target the greater chance that it will break.

As I said, this is not statistical evidence I know. But, I have found that many others have encountered the exact same results.

All my best, Stan

Pardon the red text - it is simply the easiest way to carry on a detailed discussion in my estimation. BTW, I have great respect for Mr. Brown as very knowledgable.

OK, Larry. Come on back with your next round of arguments.

DDA

I'll stick with the same ones, Don. First, you didn't quote the part of my post where I pointed out that we can't know how many single pellet hits don't result in a break because some of those will indeed break when they hit the ground. The point, therefore: Since we know that it's not at all unusual to find unbroken targets with a single hole (more unusual, but not really rare, to find them with two holes) and since we also know we're not finding all the unscored hits because some break from ground contact, that means the number of unscored hits is even greater than we can prove by collecting targets. Which means it's even less likely that Dr. Jones' contention that single pellet hits that score are the rule rather than the exception (going from memory, I think he puts even more emphasis than that on single pellet breaks) is indeed open to question.

And doesn't Dr. Jones state that shooters, because of the nature of patterns as he's observed and researched them, have to rely on a certain number of single pellet breaks? If so, then certainly when you end up with 100 (or more) straights at skeet or trap, that score would have to include a number (but we don't know how many) of single pellet breaks. And indeed, if you got a single pellet break 100 times in a row, you'd have a score of 100. However, by the time we add together all the holed but unbroken targets we can pick up, together with all the holed but unbroken targets that shatter when they hit the ground, I think we can agree that it's HIGHLY unlikely that 100 single pellet strikes in a row would result in 100 breaks. Too much observable evidence to the contrary to support the likelihood of that. Of course you can also pick a winning Powerball ticket . . . but at very great odds.

Because it's not at all unusual to find unbroken targets with a hole or two, what we do know is that any model that suggests single pellet breaks figure prominently in one's score at any clay target game is definitely open to question. What Dr. Jones needs to do is to find himself a skeet range (unbroken targets generally falling within two fairly restricted areas, one from each house) and place some sort of soft covering on the ground to prevent contact breaks. Then he needs to collect the unbroken targets--probably after every round, because they can also break if they fall on another unbroken target--and examine them for holes. That, at least, would give him some idea of how many misses aren't really misses at all, but rather unscored hits.

I have shot quite a bit of skeet in the past,including some 100 straights, and have seen a lot more straights shot, and most of the time the target was centered in the pattern, and resulted in a cloud of smoke. I have seen several 500 straight runs also, and the guys that can do that don't depend on single pellet breaks to do the job. The chokes used are normally tighter than skeet, and the targets are centered, or hit more toward the front edge. At skeet, only targets shot at station 1 high house, station 7 low house and station 8 are normally hit on the top or bottom. All other shots are edge on to the target. I have seldom seen a hole through the rim of an unbroken target, most have been bottom to top, and I have seen a lot that were chipped on the top or edge by a pellet that didn't break the target.
In the old days of skeet shooting, pictures showed nets set up in the area where the targets fell to catch the unbroken ones for re-use. That was possible in the days of hand cocked and hand set traps, but the automatic traps are too hard on the targets to reuse those which have been previously thrown.