which load?!?!?

[Bigeclipse]

I have read that a dirty barrel can affect pattern spread. I pattern mine with a clean bore as with most of my turkey that is what they will be shot with. I am a big believer that temps affect patterns a great deal. This has been what I have seen when I shot Long Beard, Temp 30 degrees, Light to no wind. Pattern is about 15% less then on a similar day with a warm temp..Not being a engineer can someone tell us if this is accurate? and why?

In the am is WVs opening day,,,I pray they gobble! longbeards

I have read this too but DANG mine was like a 40% reduction of hits!  I have done 2 long days of testing with both the Hevis and the longbeards.  The first day, I patterned both using 4 different chokes at 20 and 40 yards to try and narrow down the choke.  I found both the long beards and HEVI blends patterned best with the HEVI branded choke (forget the restriction number though maybe .689?)  Anyways, here is the surprising thing. On that first day, at 40 yards, I got 135 and 145 pellets in 10 inch ring with the longbeards , 166 and 173 with the HEVIs.  I then shot a 3rd shot with the HEVIs at 40 just to verify and again got 168 pellets. So it was the winner at both 20 and 40 yards. That was 3 weeks ago.  I then went out this past Saturday to finish sighting in my red dot. So again, at this point I have not cleaned the barrel and id say it had 20 or so shots through it from that first day of testing. I then used the remaining longbeards to sight in the shotgun since they were hitting exactly where the HEVIs were hitting on that first day. This took me an additional say...5+ shots. So my earlier estimate of a dirty bore with 15-20 shots is probably quite low. More likely 30+ shots. Anyways, before I left I then shot the remaining 2 shells of HEVIs to verify at 20 yards and 40. The 40 yard pattern looked far more opened than it did that first day. That first day id say the pattern was a 2 foot by 2 foot pattern while this day was almost 4 feet! It hit dead center on my turkey target. so I counted the pellets in the turkey 10 inch ring which gave me like 110 or so which is still acceptable. Just blows my mind that I went from 170 pellets down to 110.  I then tried the longbeards and same thing, 105 pellets compared to the 135 I was getting.  I cleaned the bore last night, which was definitely really dirty and I will test after work tonight.  I hope the pattern tightens up to what it was before because it was an AMAZING pattern at all ranges before. Now it is still amazing from 0-30, and from 30-40 it is still acceptable, so either way I will be using them but would definitely like to see them go back to that original count.  If so, then I know the bore was the culprit as todays temps will be similar to saturdays.

[trackerbucky]

You might try cleaning your barrel between shots.  I use a bore snake on mine between shots.  It takes less than a minute to run it through two times.  I figure I'll most likely be shooting a clean bore when I have a turkey noggin in my sights, so why not pattern with a clean one.

[Dr Juice]

I would use the Hevi as my primary shell since it has greater knockdown power.

[Bigeclipse]

Well I'm an idiot...checked my patterns and I'm shooting a touch high so the density part of the pattern was about 5 inches high. I'm back to getting 160 pellets in ten inch circle...we can now close this thread lol sorry guys

[owlhoot]

Oh well , it was fun while it lasted.