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10ga Pedersoli SxS help

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I volume measure my T7 always. Supposed to be a 15% reduction to real np. I will say the heavier shot load I went to while reducing powder made a world of difference. My patterns at 20yds with the cylinder brrl are clean and there's no holes, but it's a huge pattern...prly 3'? The other "choked" brrl is prly 2' or so and looks the same, just with more pellets in smaller diameter. Has anyone ever played around with a felt wad instead of the 1/2" fiber wad oil soaked or split a fiber wad? Just spit balling to see how finicky a smoothhore can really be? I know out to 30yds #6 shot is plenty, but i do have a Crown Royal bag with a couple pounds of #4-#7.5 shot mix..worth trying?
I am a big fan of felt wads for 30 years. I ALWAYS get great patterns from them. I'm not referring to those skinny wonder lubed felt wads. There is some dealer out there that sells 1/4 to 3/8 blanket wool wads, can't remember who. I dunks them in moose milk and squeeze them out a little. Shoots great patterns with cylinder bores.
 
It will sometimes take months to get a shotgun to pattern correctly and consistantly.. I never had trouble with nitro cards. Fiber wads almost always give me fits, although I have had a few shotguns that liked them....very few.
I'm looking at ordering a 9 bore barrel from Rice. Never had a 9 bore before!
 
To the OP,
If your patterns do not have large voids in them the pattern size you noted earlier is not that bad, this is not a modern load with shot cups, flight control cups and so on. I will have to dig up some results from testing a few years ago (3,000 shot test) but the main take away was some of the early paper cartridge loads (black powder and nitro) were the best preforming, velocity kept around 1,075 / 1150 fps patterned the best, lower shot volume patterned better in many cases, 1 1/2f powder was very good, early loads were copied and shot though percussion side by sides.
As far as a couple of things go, high velocity did not buy much if anything as the shot was damaged in the bore from aggressive setback and with the absence of a shot cup the grinding down of some shot against the barrel wall, both lead to edges of the shot column dispersing to the sides (lose of shot or wide pattern). High shot volume, most of the above applies and increases felt recoil, some people like the rule of tonnage thought, more is better and incoming lead has the right of way but can result in hot core.
Chokes, can be a pain to nail down and cause the same problems as noted with high velocity, tight choke and high velocity can lead to hot core of shot column, that's when the outer edge of the column disperses to the side (lets say 30deg) leaving the core of the column going to the target, in some cases it's like shooting 1 1/8oz of shot but the core getting to the target zone is only 7/8oz, if you think on what is going on, X amount of shot traveling down the bore being compressed as it accelerates to the muzzle, it can't expand sideways because of the bore (tube), now the bore becomes smaller, the shot compresses more with minor lengthening, then exit , every action has reaction, compress/decompress, shot blows out of the pattern to the sides.

This compression and force can be seen if you test and pick up the shot cups, in both cases of high velocity and too tight a choke the cups show pellet burn though. Also as I tested by placing cardboard pattern boards one behind the other from 10 to 25 yards at 5 yard intervals.

This is getting long so I will end with this, pattern boards only give a small picture of what is going on, can show you if the comb is right for you (shooting left/right, high/low, it will never show shot column length, when in the column was that fist size void the board shows, when shooting aerial targets bird or clay the key is to have the front of the column arrive in it's path (line) just ahead of it and let the target fly through the column, I found after testing that if you can change choke or have a gun made with what you want, modified was the best all round, failing that improved cylinder or cylinder, load a standard or light load for the caliber (12g =1 1/8oz or 1oz, 20g 7/8oz or 3/4oz), in the 1075 to1150fps range, I have consistently dropped targets with 3/4oz load in 28g out to 50 yards.
Pattern boards can drive you nuts.
 
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This picture shows set back (a little) , I know it's in a shot cup but it's the only way to show it, also this has left the barrel and still compressed.
 

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This image shows high velocity, note the flat spots on the shot from pressure against the bore.
 

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And last is a fiber wad with card over shot, card is in pieces in the middle, shot has gone.
 

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