doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Pattern density between gauges

I may be completely wrong, but if you load a 3/4 oz. load in a 12ga. and a 28ga., for targets only, out of two guns that throw the same % patterns would it not be more a question of the dynamics of the two guns than the gauge?Mark II

Stan, if you really want to get into testing, download a copy of Dr. Jones's "Insights" program for digital acquisition (from a digital photo of a pattern) of patterns and statistical analysis of them. Matter of fact I would recommend anyone considering patterning work use Insight. It is a fabulous tool. Post back if you want to go this route and/or need help with it.

DDA

Thanks, Don, and all. First thing I need to do is get off my butt and get that pattern plate built, then I can photograph the patterns instead of keeping all that paper. I can understand the numbers much better now.

SRH

Stan;
My figures were simply theory & based on a situation which doesn't exist in the real world. If the shot were distributed evenly over the entire pattern & spread linearly it would be a simple mathamatical equation to calculate on the fact the area of a circle is proportionate to the square of its diameter. The fly in the ointment is the shot are not evenly distributed. In theory if you had 100 shot in the 30" circle & you drew a concentric 15" circle then it would have 25 shot in it. You could no doubt fire a million patterns & never acheive this situation. You will virtually always have some amount of central core thickening which will increase the number of hits in the center, but lessen the hits in the outer ring. If you ended up with 40 hits in the 15" circle & 60 in the outer ring then you would have 200% central thickening so obviously a well center target coud be killed or broken at a further distance than one in the outer ring. Yet each of these two patterns could be described as a 60% pattern with 3/4oz of #6 shot.

Thanks, Miller, I understand that, and have been aware of the "hot core" of nearly all shotgun patterns for as long as I have been patterning, which has been a long time. I understand the inability to calculate an exact comparison, because of this and because of the way shot are distributed, as Don explained. But, this question still nags me. If this is the case, and we accept that it is, can we not then go forward with a comparison that accepts the error, and the fact that none of this is exact, and have something useful anyway?

When I study published yield comparisons of corn, cotton or peanuts for the previous crop year in order to determine which variety, out of dozens, I will plant this spring, I know that these same varieties could be planted and compared again and the results would not be exactly the same. The top yielder might fall to second, or third place. But, when I look at those yield comparisons for the past three consecutive years I see one or two emerge as the clear leaders, I know I have some information that is useful to me. At the bottom of the page of corn yields there will be info such as this, showing yields at various locations:

Yields ----------297.3, 312.2, 314.2, 265.6

LSD at 10% level ----9.4, 16.1, 14.6, 18.4
Std. Err. of Entry Mean 4.0, 6.8, 6.2, 7.8

I'm sure these two lower lines of numbers mean much more to some of you than they do to me. I understand, by this, that these yields can be given a certain level of credibility. If this is acceptable to me I put my "faith" in these results.

Is there a difference here that I do not see? I certainly am no student of "probability". There may be some of you who are, and understand these things much, much better than I. If so, please comment.


SRH

Took me a while but I finally figured out....check you your pattern on a pattern plate if it looks good you're good to go.

Time spent analyzing patterns could be better spent.

10% LSD sounds bad to me, but if you look at enough patterns, you may well be tempted to use the stuff.

Stan;
I would guess that this would be possible, but will have to say I have simply not done enough pattern testing at a level to make any real conclusions. One question in my mind is if a similar shot loat is fired through different bore sizes, can a statistical probability of pattern distribution (basically central core thickening) be established. In my mind, I would expect the largwer bore to give less core thickening than the smaller bore, but have not actually proved this to be the case.

That might hold true until you really squeeze the choke on a big bore.

With this greater understanmding of numbers any one care to comment about ethics of shooting at birds with shotgun at at 100 yards or more ?