For those of you who don't know, Dr. A. C. Jones covered the hard vs soft shot issue in his learn'ed work, "Sporting Shotgun Performance," chapter 17. Soft shot through a full choke will produce near a 20" pattern diameter at about 28 yards and hard will produce the near identical pattern at about 32 yards.
Now, for the fly in the ointment. Do you want a more open choke or a tighter choke? This is the question because the patterns are statistically the same at a few yards difference in range. So, you can have the same pattern with soft as with hard by adding a few points more choke. Or, you can open your choke a few points by shooting soft shot. Shotgun patterns are Rayleigh distributed - so far, nuttin' has changed that.
So, howzibout a few more of you buckos belly up to the pattern plate, download Insights, and give us some statistically backed data - - - like Stan is doing for the .410 vs 12 bore effective pattern diameter question.
"ARRrrr, matey, there are monsters out there!!"
DDA
