To the original question, I shoot #6 Hevi-shot when shooting my 3" 20ga (I've shot three out of a box of five), and I am required to shoot non-tox.
My 20 is now mostly reserved for a very few trips, on sunny days, where I am allowed to shoot lead.
In the 12 ga, I shoot Kent Industries 3" #3.
I shoot it at ducks, geese, turkeys, rabbits, grouse, and any other small game I am shooting at. (*The key is not to shoot until you know what you shoot at is close enough to be effective)
I own four shotgun reloading presses, one a progressive 12 ga rig.
I have reloaded non-tox loads extensively, both back and the beginning, and in recent times (trying to develop predator loads).
Modern "power piston" shot cups, what we all call the wad, have made reloading of non-tox loads a lot safer, as well as doing wonders at getting these loads to pattern.
In non-toxic loads, steel and hevi conglomerates in particular, because the shot is very hard, a very soft shot cup is required.
(*That's part of why extra choke waterfowl chokes have become more popular)
You can tell by how deeply a non-tox shot cup is "bruised", that because the amount of constriction in the barrel is equal to or less than the depth of the bruising, the choke can't be having much effect of dispersal.
(*Granted part of the bruising is caused by "take off", and part at the choke)
In patterning tests, my cylinder bored Mossberg 500 shoots, most loads, very close to The Winny 1200 with XX waterfowl choke.
The point is, most of the pattern displacement takes place after the payload leaves the barrel, and is way more effected by when and how the wad's petals behave.
Back in the olden days, when we used cardboard wads, which more often than not left exposed pellets sliding along the bare steel of the inside of your barrel, a choke had a way more marked effect on the dispersal pattern.
Modern power pistons have a larger effect on pattern than does choke.
To prove this try different loads in a shotgun with a fixed choke, changing nothing more than the wad.
Then if possible, change the choke by changing barrels, and go through the same wads.
You'll probably find you can get either barrel to pattern in the size range you want.
For instance I can get both barrels of my 20 ga O/U (one full, one mod) to pattern the same size, or I can get drastic change, just by changing the payload components.
I have found uniformity (or the lack of it) a bigger factor in patterning at the extreme end of range, with non-toxic shot, as compared to (much rounder) lead shot.
Does anyone remember "cubic shot", and the effect it had on pattern (and the ability to break clay pigeons)?
Or has anyone patterned reclaimed shot, against new?
All just food for thought...
Krusty
