doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com RST spreader loads?

My thoughts on using spreader loads are:

1. I can have my guns choked approximately IC & Mod which works out well for most of my pheasant hunting with conventional loads & then switch to The RST Spreader for woodcock & grouse when I feel I need to open the pattern a little. I've not seen a problem with patchy patterns with the RST product.

2. Choke tubes like Briley thin walls are practical but by English proof standards they take a gun out of proof unless reproofed after installation, something I don't like to do to a nice gun that is in proof.

3. As to the comment by King Brown about the danger of hitting dogs while using spreaders, that's just plain silly! If that's a problem you are shooting way to close to the dogs (& hunting partners) & I don't want you hunting with me or my dogs using any type of live ammunition.

I just shot some patterns with RST speaders and Polywads, for the same reasons that BM mentioned. I have not had a chance "run the numbers" but by eyeball, the RST patterns looked a bit tighter and had better pellet distribution. I will share my results when I have had a chance to get to that.

Never patterned them, but my hit ratio skyrockets on grouse and especially on close shots on doodles shot over my pups point.

RWTF - Mi grouse are hit/miss, but the woodcock always seem to make for a good outing with the dog.

Gary

I reported an observation of a very experienced hunter with long experience with dogs, BM. He may have been shooting close, I don't know. If his comment is silly, it's his comment not mine. I don't use spreaders. Tailoring loads to chokes for upland have been most satisfactory for me over the last 70-plus years.

I recall an article in a Gun Digest years ago by Roger Barlow titled, if my memory is anywhere close to correct, Square Shot & little Flying Saucers. He reported on making both homemade cube & disc shot. He did this for the cube shot by pouring a lead sheet & then cutting it into cubes & for the disc shot by placing regular shot between steel plates & pressing them into discs. As best I recall his results proved to be acceptable for a short range spreader load but would be considerable work if more than a very few shells were needed of this type.

I can see Roger cutting those lead sheets now.

[quote=King Brown] "Tailoring loads to chokes for upland have been most satisfactory for me over the last 70-plus years."

Actually King, using spreader loads in a fixed choke gun is "Tailoring loads & chokes for upland". That is the whole point of the exercise.

BTW spreader loads have improved in the last "70-plus years" from the old style loads with the cardboard separators but a wild "flyer" well out of the pattern can happen with conventional shot loads as well thus my feeling that you were repeating a "silly" 2nd hand comment from an experienced hunter & dog man.

Alex from RST told me that in their testing the spreader loads opened up about 1 choke size in tight chokes. That effect diminishes the more open the chokes are. The spreader loads would have virtually no effect on cyl chokes.

I have shot several brands and loaded my own using different recipes and methods over the years. I've never gotten one to open the pattern much over one constriction, .010". Sometimes that is enough to help, though.

SRH

I shoot the Fiocchi spreaders and they work great, about doubling the pattern. mine are shot in a lt mod choke