Taking new SG to the range this week. What to do?

Malone LaVeigh

New member
There was a thread a few months ago wherein someone talked about checking out the pattern on a new SG. As I recall, it involved shooting at a big circle to get an idea how tight it shot. Can anyone point me to that discussion?

I don't have changable chokes, but I will be testing a couple of barrels and a sampling of shot sizes. I'd appreciate any help.
 
The circle comes after the shot. Here's the method.

Take a 4'X4' piece of blank paper, affix a small dot in the middle for an aiming point(Which you will NOT aim at) and MEASURE or pace off the distance you want.

40 yards is traditional, but I suggest patterning where you take your birds at. For upland stuff, 25 or 30 yards is more common.

Anyway, look at the aiming point, mount your shotgun and fire as if it was flying. Do not aim.

Repeat a few times on fresh papaer, marking the old ones as to choke, load, bbl or other cogent info.

Now take them all home and spread out the first one on a flat surface.

Look for the densest part, the core. Note it's relation to the POA. This tells whether your shotgun and you shoot high, low, etc.

Now, knot two pencils in a piece of string 10" apart.Stick one in that densest area and scribe a circle around it with the other. Next, reknot the pencils 15" apart and scribe a second circle. Now, grab a felt marker and start counting. When you have all the pellets in the smaller circle counted, count the ones in the larger. Mark down the totals, divide by the total number of pellets in the load to get the percentage. More cogent, note any holes in the pattern big enough to let a bird through. Call that 4 inches. If there's 2 holes that size or less, your patterns will work at that range with that load. Also note the holes in the outer ring, lots of pellets here means more inches of working pattern.

Hope this helps, tho I think Geoff did a better job not too long ago...
 
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One additional tip...

...to Dave's excellent response.

If you pattern at a measured 16 yards, that translates to 1/16th of an inch of stock adjustment per inch of point of aim.

For example, say that your fixed choke barrel shoots 4" to the right at 16 yards. Having the cast on your stock adjusted 1/4th of an inch to the right will bring your POA to dead center.

Good luck,

Bud
 
Thank you, gentlemen! If you are ever in my neck of the woods, I'd be happy to buy a round or pay your range fee for an afternoon.

This is going to be fun.
 
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