PrimeTime,
You're a turkey hunter right? Many experts claim that you need 5 solid hits on the bone in a turkey head/neck for solid kills. I subscribe to the same theory for no. Four Buck, 4-5 solid vitals hits for solid kills. A no. Four Buck pellet is a .243 caliber ball that weighs about 20 grains if I remember correctly. A good hit with a plated Four Buck pellet broadside will penetrate completely across the chest cavity of a coyote. Five of those will wreck havic inside a critters chest.
In my testing I took blank newspaper roll (butchers wrap works as well) and stapled it at the fifty yard (50 yd.) target stand at my gun range. I put this blank paper in a 36" x 36" square. I then put a 3" orange sticky dot aiming point in the center of this square by drawing a line across the diagonals to easily find the center. A piece of string 4" long with a pencil tied onto it was used to make a 8" circle around the center of the aiming dot. Another 16" inch circle was scribed around the dot using an 8" string. That's my target set-up.
I place my shotgun on the bench at the fifty yard mark on a rest just as if I were sighting in a rifle. I load one round and carefully and slowly crush the trigger aiming as precisely as possible at the orange aiming dot. Then I walk down and record the number of pellets in the 3" orange aiming dot, the 8" inch and the 16" inch circles. Total the numbers to get a count of shot striking the center of the aiming point knowing that with a three inch .12 gauge no. Four Buck you fired 41 pellets at the target. Look closely at pattern dispersion and if the pattern is hitting centered around your aiming point. I like a center dense pattern and of course it must be hitting to point of aim. Record the shell information, carefully pull this paper down and set up another identical to it. I shoot five of each type of load, five of Federal Premium, five of Winchester Supreme, five of Remington Premier, ect... This gives a decent comparison and an ideal of consistency.
As to what to expect... I don't know how the others guns perform. From memory my Benelli M1S90 with the Kick's .660" Gobblin' Thunder choke and Federal Premium 3" inch .12 gauge magnum loads of no. Four Buck places 4-5 pellets in the 3" orange center aiming dot, 10-11 in the 8" circle, and 22-24 inside the 16" circle at the fifty yard line. My patterns are center dense, round and even, and right on the point of aim. My Dad's Mossberg 500 with a Hastings .660" tube does nearly was well. From experience both these rigs are sure killers to 50+ yards.
