Random Buckshot Results:
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.660 Primos Jelly Head (Ported)
3.5" Remington Express 1235B 00 12 3 1/2" 1125 00 18
40 yards
Notes: Not bad, centered and even...looks 60/40ish high/low.
.660 Primos Jelly Head (Ported)
3.5" Federal Vital-Shok 00
40 yards
Notes: Pretty wide pattern, the Remington is much better.
.660 Rhino 2" Extended (Ported)
3.5" Remington Express 1235B 00 12 3 1/2" 1125 00 18
40 yards
Notes: Good patterning in the center but some flyers. Solid 60-70% in the kill zone and pretty tight.
.660 Rhino 2" Extended (Ported)
3.5" Federal Vital-Shok 00
40 yards
Notes: Horizontal distribution, but not good.
Buckshot Conclusions:
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The .660 Rhino with 3.5" Remington 00 is my current combo that I use out of this gun for buckshot (deer).
Pretty nice pattern at 40 yards, nothing phenomenal, but an overall solid pattern. I'd like to test this at 50 yards to see how much it opens.
I also plan on doing more buckshot testing eventually, but given I usually use my slug gun, it's not as high of a priority as finding a good predator pattern out of this gun.
Follow-up Plan:
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Nothing planned as of right now, but open to suggestions /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
Choke wise, I'm feeling out of options without putting $100s+ more into testing.
As I think about the chokes and hevi-shot and HD loads, I'm wondering if I should try out some "steel-oriented" choke tubes.
I've observed noticeable contact and scarring in some of the chokes, even in the .685 and .695 range, indicating obviously contact and possibly leading to collisions/deflections.
I don't think you can avoid that though really without going very big constriction wise.
But perhaps that's what it takes? Yet I cannot understand how the 3.5" Remington 00 and Rhino 4x5x7 both pattern tight and well with the .660 Rhino. The buckshot has some clear flyers probably from deflection but the core pattern is still hitting very well centered.
So that makes me curious as to whether going even tighter would improve patterns...something in the .655 or .650 range even. But I think as I go that tight, I increase the risk of possibly damaging the barrel and/or choke.
Overall, I've found some better patterns for the predator loads, still nothing mind blowing at 40 yards, but some I'd be comfortable hunting with at least to 40 yards.
I will likely do some more testing at 50+ to see what the limitations of the combo(s) are.
The majority of choke/load combos definitely pattern way off from POA. I'm not sure if this is considered normal, but very very few seem to pattern centered.
Further the majority of patterns don't have a respective core of shot clustering to even allow for a POA shift...which I consider normal, but the variation in POI seems pretty significant between shells even with similar constriction chokes.
I noticed something very similar for turkey shot, where the majority of loads POI would be way off POA...but was lucky to find Nitro and the Winchester Elite Xtended Range (both pricey shells) centered well without shifting POA.
Likewise in the buckshot realm...where that Remington 3.5" seems to pattern in the center where POI and POA are very close.
I'm not sure what can be done about that, or if the above Predator patterns (now working on nearly 85+ unique patterns in this thread) are evidence enough that the gun is either just subpar or has an inherent issue?
Or perhaps I'm looking for too much and should just accept this gun as a good turkey gun, a solid buckshot gun, but a subpar predator gun at distances greater than 40 yards?
Or maybe there is some magic load out there (trying to avoid Nitro custom, although at this point the cost would have been much less) that will be centered, tight and evenly distributed.
Thoughts?
