Shot loads out of any rifled barrel will spin, and string out, producing a "pattern" like the stripe on a barber's pole, unfortunately. Anything beyond about 5 yards is a wish and a hope to hit.
That may be okay for a pistol, considering the much closer ranges that most shooters will try to take shots with pistols. As Slow as the Rate of Twist is in MLers, and as slow as the velocity is when shooting loads from pistols, that shot load will still be spinning at an incredible rate of speed( you can compute the rpm's for any given Rate of Twist, and velocity).
For Yucks, and the challenge, and to try to get some of our Rifle Shooters to try the NEW club Trap machine, we held a " novelty" shoot for rifles, shooting shot, at clay targets. The guys were allowed to stand right next to the machine, and the targets were thrown straight out, rather than off to one side or the other. Even with these allowances( and shots taken at 5-10 yards) we had far more misses than hits. I think we shot at 3-5 targets, and you could re-enter to improve your score. The club provided #7 1/2 sized shot. Even when we hit the targets, we were chipping the edges. :surrender: :hmm: :thumbsup:
The grumbling about how difficult it was to clean all the lead out of the grooves of those rifles that we heard the next month resulted in a vote to discontinue those kind of "novelty matches".
If you have ever tried shooting .22 rimfire shotshells from a revolver with rifling, ( either the old LR, or newer .22 magnum) or tried any of the much more expensive shotloads in .38, or .45 caliber cartridges, you will find much the same problem( altho many of these shot loads use #12 shot, which is like dust!)
I always encourage new shooters to test loads in their guns( within reason) to find out for themselves what works, and what doesn't, if they have the time and money. Go ahead and try a shot load in that .454 bore. Just keep your expectations low, so you won't be grossly disappointed! :shocked2: :wink:
When we were doing that novelty shoot at the club, and missing those clay targets, several members decided to retire to the rifle range, and see what kind of patterns were being produced out of their rifles at various distances. They fired loads from 25 yards, and after finding that most of the pellets missed the paper, they moved in closer, and reduced powder charges.
A couple of us stood off to the side of the shooters, but closer to the targets. We could actually hear and see the pellets spirally as they hit the paper. It was weird! The patterns had large holes in the center, and the only way to get that hole smaller was to stand closer to the target. Oh, POI was substantially different, depending on load used, than what the same gun did shooting PRBs. Mostly, the POI was much lower, which explained so many of the "misses" on the flying clay targets. However, as the bore got more and more lead deposits in the grooves, even the POI changed, and the pattern spread out more.
I did the same experiments with revolvers and shot loads back in the early 1970s, when I was trying to come up with a better home-defense load. I was unimpressed with both the patterns, and the penetration from the commercial shot loads. I decided to have a loaded shotgun handy for self-defense at home instead( in addition to loaded handguns tactically placed around the home for quick acquisition and use), and abandoned the idea of using shot loads in revolvers for this purpose.