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;-)
