Thanks for the replies guys!
knockemdown,
Yeah I was looking back at the Cabela's .665 and the pattern isn't that bad at all in some cases. I might fire a few more through with that choke to see how consistent it is.
Quote:
What I found was choke .695" pattern to lose---.675" choke pattern to lose but .685" choke had a high density pattern in 15" circle.
At what distance was this?
What's odd is when I patterned this gun for turkey, my patterns with a variety of chokes were just like you see above...very sporadic, uneven, gapped, and variable POI wise. Nothing would pattern even.
The ONLY consistently shooting off the shelf loads I've found that are very even patterns (all around, circular) and very dense are the 3.5" Winchester Elite Extended Range with the Rhino .660.
Beyond that the Nitro 4x5x7 shoots great but it also has like 300 pellets in it, so it's a sick killer with the Rhino .660. The pattern is not very even, I believe it's more veritcal than horizontal, but it's absolutely deadly.
With that said, I don't know what is special about the Winchester Elite Xtended Range shells, but there is something different that allows them to pattern nice and evenly distributed unless the 20 other shells I put through the gun for turkey shot.
Oddly though, other Winchester shells did NOT perform well at all...it was only the Elite Xtended Range that would.
I feel like I'm in the same dilemma for predator and buckshot now. Cycling through umpteen shells seeing the same sporadic and subpar results, looking for that needle in a haystack.
Looking at the Winchester Elite Xtended Range offering, they do have a "coyote" shell but it's only a B shot.
Quote:
SCXR123 Supreme Elite™ 12 3 1 3/8 B
This seems a little light, but it may pattern quite well given my prior results with the Supreme Elite line.
Unfortunately there is nothing in this line for buckshot.
Worst case, I could always go custom Nitro but I feel I really shouldn't have to struggle like this with a $1500 gun! It's pretty sad when my $200 Remington 870 Express can outperform my SBE2! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif
Or perhaps I've just been lucky and found good combos for my 870 and 11-87 and didn't have to put this kind of range time and money into finding the perfect setup.
As I mentioned above, I ordered some more chokes to try in the .690 and .695 range to see if expanding the constriction helps some.
What I did notice, even in the .685 chokes when buffing them out is that there are noticeable scars/scratches on the inside indicating pellet contact. I could not buff these out, so perhaps this is an indication that these 3.5" shells are too overchoked.
So stepping back to 3" with .685 and lower, or trying .690 and .695 with 3.5" might be the ticket (crossing fingers!).
It's just completely odd how when I patterned buckshot with the 3.5" Remington 00 last year, the Rhino .660 yielded the best patterns...and that certainly seems way overchoked but anything wider (the stock Benelli chokes with no elongated parallel section nor porting, the Patternmaster Extended Range and Long Range, and the Carlson Dead Coyote) yielded much wider and unacceptable patterns.
This gun is just straight up weird to me. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif
Anyway, I'll keep you guys posted on the results, and likewise if you have any of your own, post em on up here...will be helpful for any of the other SBE2 owners out there! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif
