So I finally got in some Federal TSS#9's and another choke to test out. I got a little bit better patterning out of the Tight-Wad .570 than I did with the Carlsons .575. Yall are just going to have to take my word for it because my paper rack got blown over by the wind and mangled the paper. I dual-purpose a paper rack for arrow tuning with my bows and for patterning shotguns. It's not heavy at all, it's just a clothes rack from Lowes on Wheels that has a roll of construction paper on it. Nice for patterning, but doesn't do great in the wind it acts like a sail. I didnt want to blast through 10 TSS shells to pattern and sight it in so I shot it out of both the Carlsons and Tightwad and picked the better 40. Then did a small adjustment and shot a round at 35 yards to compare against my 35 yard shot with the heavyweight #7's out of the Carlsons (my previous setup)
Not gonna lie, been resisting TSS forever and I hate the expense but the results do speak for themselves. I will say, if I could still buy the heavy weight 7's at $20 a box I would just use those but any way.... Here is the results from today and the comparison to the days of old.
(https://i.ibb.co/FB1TK10/PXL-20230407-022122553.jpg) (https://ibb.co/64SCmS1)
(https://i.ibb.co/K0pCWz7/PXL-20230407-022053256.jpg) (https://ibb.co/Wx4SfpF)
I'm with you all the way around, Wayyyyy too rich for my blood. 9's definitely are impressive and the 7's will hunt all day! A couple of years ago I was in a small shop and they had 5 boxes of 2-3/4 Feds HW-7 collecting dust on em. I guessed nobody wanted Em because they were 2-3/4. I patterned them last week @ 33 I believe. I'm glad I got them! My 20 ga MB 500 w/Trulock loves em.
So I went back out today to do a good 40 yard pattern and see how it came out. I took my laser range finder with me that I did not have originally. So I have to make a correction, my original 35 yard pattern is 31 yards. I counted my slightly larger then normal steps and thought I was pretty spot on, guess not.
So my original pattern is 31 yards. Not 35.
This is an accurate 40 yards from the tip of the barrel to the target shot. I have 218 in the 10" ring and 217 in the 18.5" ring. I did not have a 20" circular object in the house and did not feel like fooling with a string and sharpie to make it 20".
Maybe not as good as I expected but I think a 50/50 split betwen 10"/18.5" area is a damn good hunting pattern. Ill take it all day every day.
(https://i.ibb.co/18870jB/PXL-20230407-220658157-2-1.jpg) (https://ibb.co/jggb8sq)
Very good hunting pattern.
The tightwad choke with 9s is super impressive I've noticed for under $30. Especially out of my sons encore!