doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Hypothetical question re spreader loads

I've played w/spreader loads on & off for many years, some factory, most fabricated. Near all of them got tested on a grease plate @ 21yds and again at 40 yds. Some closer than that and some farther away. Shotgun patterns 'bloom' or said another way, expand exponentially, looking like the air horns seen on some trucks, from the side. It isn't a linear happening. And they don't all follow the same curve or began to bloom at the same distance, but close up, say within 15 yards, you won't see flyers. Move back to 21 [center of a skeet field] and you won't see them w/new round shot. Use purposely deformed shot or some reclaimed shot & you may begin to see some. Back up to 40 and you see strikes to the extreme edges of the plate [4'x4'], actually two of then side by side, making me conclude that it didn't catch them all, as I could sometimes see strikes on the contiguous plate where they abutted. Just saying.

Go back in time far enough and some boxes of 'skeet loads' had two cartridges that were 'spreaders' intended for use on station 8. I've never had a dog that could jump that high, but some that wanted to;-)

Stan I'm so glad you finally' got a grease shooting plate.

I been shooting one for years.

My gun club has 4000 members with that many members you're going to run into more than a few ding dongs...years back I saw a guy walk up to our steel grease plate at 5 or 6 yds maybe closer and empty his .410 pistola loaded with buckshot...I thought boy this guy has a head on his shoulders.

Thanks to idiots like him we now have signs clearly marked "no shot bigger than 7.5 lead shot only".

Before the signs I patterned my turkey guns on it with lead #4 with nare a mark on the plate. I never shot a #4 shot closer than 25 yds.

About a week ago I went down there with a young man to see where his trap gun was shooting. We walked down to roll it out and it looked like .38 craters in the plate...found 3 empty OO buck hulls at 25 yards...so big lead shot will dent a heavy steel plate.

At an angle you might get a ricochet...I've shot a greased plate a lot straight on at 14 yds.and never felt anything come back with 7.5 lead shot.



As far as a stray pellet from
a shotgun hitting a pointing dog...sounds kinda silly to me. I'll even go so far as to say made up liberal crap.

Shooting over pointers for quail I'm usually standing almost over the dog at the shot...

I'd say the chance of a pellet hitting the dog is about eQual to hitting yourself in the foot with a pellet.

Better chance that new found' grease plate of yours falling off and chopping your foot off while you're rolling it out.



Stan you hear what happened to the kAt?

If one has a SXS that is M/F or F/F and desires to hunt woodcock in leafy or thick woods where the shot opportunity windows are within 20-25 yards and maybe hunt late season dove, spreader loads make the woodcock shots more practical and late season dove hunting with regular ammo without the need for screw-ins. I have some guns with C/F that I use for woodcock. With woodcock, having two open patterns made possible with spreaders in one or more barrels gives a close-in pattern for two shots when the need arises. Spreaders work as intended. For those that handload with the Polywad post, a member of the 16 ga. forum came up with a solution for what he noticed were holes in pattern's center. He loads three fourths of the load under the spreader disk and the balance of the load ahead of the disk with an OSC roll crimped on top of the full load. Gil

GLS I imagine Stan is shooting them at sporting clay rabbits...never saw him mention hunting over pointing dogs.

For years I've occasionally shot sporting clays with a guy that used about 3 different loads when he shot on a course...maybe more.

He is a really good shot...I personally think he would've shot just as good or better with one shell.

There's always the fellow looking for a little edge....trouble is...is the real or imagined gain really worth the added financial or mental cost.

Kinda like a TSS shooter wouldn't you agree.

I think one does better not fretting about what others shoot. If it works for them, why should I complain? As for "cost" there is not one thing practical about what we do with loads or guns we hunt game with. As Chuck H. once said, once we pass the first Kentucky Fried Chicken joint on the way to hunt birds, all practicality flies out the window. Gil

No fretting from me I assure you....

I'm not looking for a little edge.

I never tried the cube shot. Can't remember who it was, but someone promoted flattened "disc" shot. I did pattern some of those. Pattern basically ceased to exist beyond 20 yards. Never used any on either clays or birds. I would not have used them around dogs.

I haven't tried all the spreaders out there. But I have observed that the Polywads--either factory or reloads using their inserts--spread much wider than the RST's. Enough wider that they might be a danger to a dog? All depends on how far away the dog is and how low you're shooting. The guns I shoot now at grouse, woodcock, and quail--often requiring close shots where you want a lot of spread--are open enough (cylinder or just a few thou constriction) that I don't use spreaders any more.

One of the first things I did after putting up my plate a few years go was to test some spreaders ............... like tw, some were reloads and some were factory. I go through about two flats of the Fiocchis every six months, or so. I still pattern them in different guns from time to time, and have never seen any of those random fliers, way out of the pattern. But, I've never shot them at distance long enough to cause the fringe of the pattern to reach the plate edge. My spreaders are used at 20 yards or less. Further than that I have minimal confidence in their density, but they would probably be effective further. They buy me a little confidence on rabbit targets, or incoming birds at very close range, out of my M and M choked P gun.

The only time I ever used them at any distance, to speak of, was at the Fall Southern Classic, at Georgetown, one year. I was trying to qualify for the L C Smith team, using my 32" barreled 16 ga. LCS, choked .025" and .026". I bought a flat of Polywad SpredRs from Rick and used them on every target, close and far. I qualified with them, and shot in the LCS/Parker event, using them. I recall being impressed at how hard they broke some of the longish stuff.

SRH

What Bro. Larry said. Orvis offered the disc "Upland Bird Spreader Load" in the mid-90s
https://books.google.com/books?id=9RNkIDGnErcC&pg=PA80&lpg
I'd forgotten about the Activ X wad

All interesting comments, and thanks. But, what I'm trying to figure is ......... is there any reason for a factory spreader load, with new round shot, to have more random fliers than a regular factory load being shot out of a gun that would have, say, a CYL barrel, or SK? I think not, but am curious enough to listen to any ideas.

The most misshapen shot that leave the barrel, from either type shell, will be those in the bottom of the payload, due to setback. The amount of "damage" to them would be a function of powder burn rate, hardness of shot, shot cup type (or lack of one) and velocity. So, it's really impossible to compare apples to apples with any degree of confidence.

As I said earlier, I have no agenda here. I'm just an inquisitive type.

SRH