patterned some Hornady #4 Buck 2 3/4 24 pellet this morning

cyl, mod , full, and turkey

everything looked good at 25 yards

nothing looked good at 50 yards I think 8 pellets was the best I did on any of them at 50 but most of those were at an edge

6 pellets with 4 fairly close to the middle with full would have been the most useful

I was actually surprised how well it patterned with cyl

I tried a couple 27 pellet Winchester also abut the same decent at 25 yards and all over the place and very few on target at 50




when it isn't so windy I need to get a big sheet of cardboard and see what the patterns that I didn't catch on cardboard look like

Are these copper plated and buffered? Makes a huge difference.

the Varmint express with the versitite wad I took thta to mean it was like a flight control

Like I said actually decently impressive from a cylinder tube at 25 which is were most people think the outside use range of buck shot is

however for coyotes it would sure be nice to see better patterns at 50 yards

https://www.hornady.com/ammunition/shotgun/12-ga-varmint-express-reg-4-buckshot#!/

the cylinder and full are carlsons extended chokes , the mod was factory rem and the turkey was a primos extended ported

I think the dot is a touch to the right of where it should be but I didn't adjust it because it was sighted in for slugs

Effective range of buckshot about 35 yards

that does seem to be the case here I am sure the pellets are lethal just that a coyote at 50 would only have caught 1-3 pellets from most of the shots I fired at 50

36 caliber hornady muzzle loader balls out of a 410. At close range I think even a 410 would take down a deer. I did this 3-4 years ago. Somewhere I got load details wrote down. I remember using h110 powder. No chronograph but I am pretty sure they are at least 1200fps. I buffered them with cream of wheat. I raised my point of aim for the second shot

Interesting that one wanders a little in each group

Jeff, if I were a betting man, I would say the one flier is the bottom most pellet in the shot column. That's the one that will see the greatest load on ignition. It's carrying the weight of the three pellets ahead of it therefore I would expect to see the greatest amount of deformation. Probably be a lot worse without the buffer. It would be interesting to check out different buffer materials and/or harder lead alloys. Anybody got a 36 cal round ball mold? I have several different alloys of lead.

I was just seeing what would happen. I had to wonder also what would it look like with a commercial buffer and hard lead like wheel weights. Buckshot is illegal here I suppose because its such a close range to be effective load.

buckshot is also illegal here for anything but fur bearers which mostly means coyotes and fox.
although it would technically be legal for coon and possum also

beaver and muskrats if you are a land owner shooting them on your own pond

I never play with it much in the past but was trying it

incredibly effective still at 25 yards and if your use for it ends at the furthest distance across your house few people have >75 foot open spaces across a house

I would also guess that the bottom pellets tend to be the fliers , chokes have in some cases been shown to reduce fliers to some extent in testing I have seen , but good wad design and a few less pellets also seems to make a big difference , cheap buckshot tends to not have a shot cup type wad , more of a gas seal over the powder with some wadding then balls

where this versatile wad is more of a cup

in my 00 testing Fiocchi was the best patterning stuff I found in what you might call budget buck shot it also recoils less than these Hornady and Winchester loads did.

if you can find the Hornady it was about 15 dollars for 10 rounds so reasonably priced and at 25 and in even from a cylinder barrel it seems to be good

of course we al want to figure out how to have 50% of pellets in the C zone or better of the target at 50 yards , it's the goal , getting there I am not sure how yet

A coyote can go a long way with a couple of buck size pellets in them. If you really want to extend shotgun range, the heavier than lead and especially TSS is effective past 60 yards.

OTOH- my lead buckshot attempts have been similar to your results. Basically a 30 yard load.

Peter Capstick wrote an article on buckshot a long time ago and it was very thorough. I believe he said #1 Buckshot was the best choice, but like you, over 30 yards it loses effectiveness quickly.

I am more likely to leave the shotgun at home and just carry the 223 while it isn't the best at fast close shots I am decent enough with it that I can make it work and have the range.
a .224 bullet will fly farther than a .22cal ball , but I only have one of them to worry about also and not 24 with no clue where half or more of them are going to end up other than basically direction of travel of 1-2 degrees. not like I would shoot 2 degrees from a person I like to keep it to more like 45*

I think on a calm day I should put up an 8 foot by 8 foot wall of cardboard and start backing up from 50 yards and get a real idea of where those fliers are going

a fragmenting .224 bullet that will come apart when it hits the ground or most anything else may just be a better tool.

I know with slugs a lot of people convinced themselves because they couldn't hit what they were aiming at that the shotgun slug was in the dirt and I know they are lethal a lot farther than you can control where the round impacts other that a couple degrees.
so they would aim way high and it made it less safe because people treated it different than a rifle thinking max range was 150 or so yards when that really isn't the case , a rifle actually proved to be safer in practice even with greater range because people treated it like a rifle and could hit what they were aiming at.

I think everyone should pattern buckshot, especially before hunting with it. It’s an easy way to get an understanding about how well some loads perform compared to others.


When ammo variety availability wasn’t an issue, I bought a box or two of every type of buckshot I could get my hands on from mini buck to 3” premium. Setup sheets of newspaper with a white sheet of paper in the center. Some loads didn’t pattern well at all and were more of a random appearance on the target/newspaper if they even all hit the paper. Others performed extremely well. For example, 3” 000 is my gun’s favorite. 10 pellets, consistently grouping in tight patterns. Every pellet on paper, mostly around the center sheet, all the way out to 50 yards. Other loads with more pellets would even have pellets that didn’t even make it on the newspaper at times. Quite an eye opener and time and money very well spent. That gun has a modified choke, permanently. Everything could change from choke to choke, barrel to barrel.


It gave me confidence for shots taken with my preferred buckshot loads, and it made it clear why so many people hate buckshot and blame it for missed or wounded game—-they probably weren’t shooting loads that their gun patterned well for many of those stories. It pays to pattern.

I just got a Kick's Buck Kicker for my Mossberg Maverick that I'm going to pattern soon. They're supposed to be an awesome choke.

I have a Carlson's Coyote for my 835. It patterns 3.5 #4 buck pretty well. Those shells are brutal to shoot though. They kill on one end and cripple on the other.

All my shotguns shot buffered the best, my sp10ga liked a cyl. choke and my 1187 liked a modified choke.

Have taken deer out to 75 yds with 3” loads of 000 and 00. I shoot a 30” full barrel on an 1100 mag.

I agree. If I were in the brush, which I'm not ever, I may change my mind.

Wow. That's a long ways to be shooting buckshot at deer.