Ron Forsyth, poster child for Australian pigeon bounty hunters, had true plated shot (20% of pellet diameter, as I recall) custom made and found less pattern difference than for hard vs soft shot. Dr. A. C. Jones, in his book "Sporting Shotgun Performance," also found that soft shot patterns bloomed more rapidly than did hard shot patterns at a statistically valid level. I'm going to say that anyone wishing to follow up on any of the theories would do well by using Dr. Jones's Insights program for computerized pattern analysis. Per his research, there is so much variability in shotgun patterns that you must shoot and analyze ten (10), yep, ten, patterns to draw any statistically valid conclusions!
Semi-rant follows. The reason, IMO, that there is so much confusion over shotgun patterns is that until Dr. Jones's work there was just no practical way to do valid pattern analysis. I would encourage anyone planning to do pattern work to use the Insight program.
DDA
