Pattern Test Report, April 2020, Pigeon Loads (Fiocchi, Gamebore, Eley)

[Anglo]

Hypothesis

The Fiocchi ‘Pigeon 32’ cartridges that I have been using appear to cause excessive wounding.

Earlier investigatory testing on the pattern plate (at various ranges with various chokes) showed these cartridges behaved erratically; the pellets tended to stick together with a lot less pellets than expected hitting the target.

Better shooting performance could be achieved by trying two readily available brands and undertaking pattern testing in the method described by John Harradine for the BASC, June 2013.

To provide some context, here are some example results from earlier testing using a factory extended 1/2 choke (20 thou) at 40 yards:

Fiocchi Pigeon 32g – 98

Eley Pigeon HV 32g - 168

Gamebore Clear Pigeon 32g - 171

Desired average – 140

Note: Based on this earlier testing, I invested in a 3/8 choke (15 thou).

Method

Shoot the pattern plate then draw a 30 inch circle over the centre of the pattern. The goal is to achieve the minimum average pellet count in a 30 inch circle, at the desired range, with at least 10 pattern tests per cartridge.

For more detail on the method see: https://forums.pigeonwatch.co.uk/forums/topic/340965-basc-pattern-test-we-need/

(I can’t find a copy of the original document)

My specification is:

• Range = 40 yards

• Minimum average pellet count in 30 inch circle = 140 (for pigeon)

• Do no exceed 140 by too much as shooting is expected to be at 25 to 40 yards and the pigeon must be edible.

In addition to the method described in the link, I have created two extra sets of data in an attempt to provide indicative results on how erratic a given cartridge can be. This is because its difficult if not impossible to consistently judge the evenness of a pattern with the human eye, but it is possible to collect data on the perceived errors in a pattern.

• Multiple Hits (MH) – This is the number of times pellets appear to have hit the same place at the same time; 2 hits in the same place gives a hole that looks like a figure of eight.

• Number of Pellets Together (NPT) – the total number of pellets that appear to have hit the same place at the same time; the sum of the pellets counted in multiple hits.

For example: A pair of pellets hitting one place and a pair hitting another would be MH=2 NPT=4.

Note: I have no way of knowing if 2 pellets did hit the target at the same time. Its possible one pellet was at the front of the shot cloud and one at the back. I do think its more likely that the pellets become stuck together in the barrel. Multiple Hits can be identified by multiple uniform curves around a hole in the target, this can be can be as high as 5. Its possibly why sometimes your quarry appears to have been ‘hit hard’ - it got it by 5 pellets in almost the exactly same place at the same time.

Apparatus

Gun: Browing Maxus, 26 inch barrel, Briley Helix Hunter ‘Mid-Range’ Choke (15 Thou)

Medium: Lining paper from B&M Bargains

Target: Mk2 Portable Pattern Plate (patent pending)

Specifications of Cartridges under test

Fiocchi: ‘Pigeon 32’ - 32 gram - No. 6 - Fibre Wad

Eley: ‘Pigeon HV’ - 32 gram - No. 6 - Fibre Wad

Gamebore: ‘Clear Pigeon’ - 32 gram - No. 6 - Fibre Wad

Results

Testing of the Fiocchi cartridges was not continued due to obvious poor performance; its not worth the time or effort.

Conclusion

• The Fiocchi cartridges under test were of exceptionally poor quality. The pellet count and spread of the pattern was poor. This accounts for the excessive wounding. I have cut open some cartridges and found all the pellets are all separated so large amounts of pellets must stick together in the barrel. Perhaps the lead is too soft and/or the diameter of the wad does not provide sufficient obturation.

• Both the Eley and Gamebore cartridges gave much better results than the Fiocchi.

• With a 15 thou choke, the Eley cartridges achieved the desired average pellet count without exceeding it too much.

• With a 15 thou choke, the Gamebore cartridges did not achieve the desired average pellet count; 17% less pellets in a 30 inch circle when compared with the Eley.

• The standard deviation for pellet count was significantly lower for the Eley cartridges; 14.43 compared with 18.21 for Gamebore. Therefore the Eley cartridges are more consistent when compared to the Gamebore cartridges.

• The Gamebore cartridges had on average 27% more Multiple Hits and a 37.55% higher Number of Pellets Together. This is more evidence of inconsistency from the Gamebore cartridges when compared to the Eley cartridges.

• The Gamebore cartridges would benefit from a 20 thou choke to increase the average pellet count, although it is highly unlikely that this would improve consistency.

• Just because the Gamebore cartridge is marketed well with a nicely printed box and celebrity endorsement… it doesn't mean its any better than the competition.

Notes on the Efficacy of the Method

I’m satisfied that 10 tests per cartridge gave meaningful average and standard deviation values for pellet count, MH and NPT.

If I stopped at 5 tests per cartridge, the results for average pellet count would have still been accurate enough to reach a worthwhile conclusion, although the Standard Deviation for pellet count would have been a lot less accurate. Scores for the first 5 tests only would have been as follows:

In future, I am unsure as to weather I would spend the time & effort on 10+ tests for each cartridge if there is an obvious trend emerging after 5 tests.

FAQ

Q: Why did you bother with all this!?

A: I was interested in the real world effects of different chokes & cartridge combinations and whether or not these match up to the gut feelings & rules of thumb people like to iterate.

Q: What have you learnt so far?

A: So far I've found that even if you stick to the same loads at a similar price, the choice of cartridge is very important, more important than choice of choke. I’ve never heard anyone say that before. I thinks its generally assumed that ‘similar’ cartridges behave in a similar way, but they certainly don’t.

Q: Would you do it again?

A: Yes, I plan to do this two more times; once for game and once for clays.

Q: Why did you choose a Briley Helix Hunter ‘Mid-Range’ Choke?

A: Its a 3/8 choke (15 thou) which was my best guess to achieve the desired average pellet count, based on earlier testing. Its advertised as being optimum for 25 to 40 yards using lead shot. Its aftermarket & extended which should give more consistent results with a wide variety of loads when compared to factory Invector chokes (based on information from American writers such as Randy Wakeman). Most importantly, I think it looks good on the end of a semi-auto.

Q: Any tips for conducting pattern tests?

A: It’s actually difficult to hit a stationary target at 40 yards in a consistent manor with a shotgun. I think this is because you are not moving you body, your muscles are not offering much resistance to recoil forces that are far higher than most rifles. This can lead to excessive barrel flip and throw the centre of the pattern so far off that the result is unusable. I used a semi-auto, I imagine this effect can be far worse with a double barrel.

To achieve a consistent result, I mark my point of aim 2 thirds from the top to the target rather than half way down. I’ve found its best to mount the gun slightly over the top of the target, pulling tightly into the shoulder with both hands, slowly lower the gun on to the point of aim while breathing out, stop when out of breath & at the point of aim then finally pull the trigger. Do not hold on the point of aim as there is a tendency to drift side to side.

My Portable Pattern Plate is 40 x 40 inches, I recommend 50 x 50 inches to alleviate this problem.

 

[Anglo]

Photos

Mk2 Portable Pattern Plate (patent pending), front and rear.

Good pattern

 

Bad pattern

Edited April 15, 2020 by Anglo

[Farmboy91]

Nice work!

I've always found 32g no6 clear pigeon a good all-rounder, but super fast pigeon, 29g no6 put even more pellets on the paper for me despite having less actual shot. 

I do enjoy a bit of patterning when I've got a new cart or gun to try.

[Anglo]

Who makes super fast pigeon? Was it plastic or fibre ward?

[Farmboy91]

Hull, and fibre wad.

I brought those at the same time as some Express 29g no6 fibre and hated them, the super fast were in my gun the polar opposite.

[Anglo]

I shall take that on board.

I've not seen them for sale around where I am so it my have to be a special order.

I've suspected that the extra pellets contained in a 32g no6 compared to say a 30g probably don't always correlate with the amount of pellets on target, but its not something I've tested yet.

[Farmboy91]

1 minute ago, Anglo said:

I shall take that on board.

I've not seen them for sale around where I am so it my have to be a special order.

I've suspected that the extra pellets contained in a 32g no6 compared to say a 30g probably don't always correlate with the amount of pellets on target, but its not something I've tested yet.

After patterning a fair few now I do believe it comes down to what suits your gun/choke as much as anything else.

The Hull's were through my S686, that's gone now and I've yet to do my new affinity with any pigeon/game loads.

If you search back I did do a 100 yard test through full choke, may be of interest to you.

 

[Anglo]

A friend of mine has an Franchi Affinity and he wants to do some testing with me, so in the future I should be able to tell you if my results have any special relevance to you.

Right now, my guess is that the Affintiy and Maxus will be similar.

[Farmboy91]

1 minute ago, Anglo said:

A friend of mine has an Franchi Affinity and he wants to do some testing with me, so in the future I should be able to tell you if my results have any special relevance to you.

Right now, my guess is that the Affintiy and Maxus will be similar.

Thank you, appreciated.

Im pretty sure the maxus is back bored, not sure about the affinity, I'm sure someone else on here will know though.

[Anglo]

2 minutes ago, Farmboy91 said:

Thank you, appreciated.

Im pretty sure the maxus is back bored, not sure about the affinity, I'm sure someone else on here will know though.

Unfortunately, it appears to me that the majority of new 12 bore sporting shotguns on the market are overbored as a gimmick. This will be bothersome when we all have to change to fibre wad only.

Before lockdown I was looking at buying a new Ceaser Gurini with a custom stock. The only things that were putting me off was 'getting the fit right' and the fact all their 12 bores now  have 'maxis bore' because the market demanded it.

[Smokersmith]

Top work and many thanks.

I think the test with the Affinity will be interesting as I believe they‘re nominally bored.

Don’t worry about the Maxis bore as it works very well with all the fibres I’ve patterned with it (obviously not the Fiocchi 32’s!!). From memory I was getting around 160 hits from the 32g Golden Pheasant 5’s (2.8mm) at 45 yards with 1/2 choke.

[Farmboy91]

To be honest id say most of my shooting, bar the tower at my local clay ground is sub 40 yards, aside from my fixed choke guns I've found if I stick half in choke in and I do my bit I'm usually ok. I tried not to think about back bored and chokes etc.

The next O/U I buy will be a fixed choke miruko, so again I'll try not to worry to much lol.

[rbrowning2]

Q1 were  they fibre or plastic wads cartridges you patterned?

Q2 did you count the pellets in a sample cartridge of each type before pattering to check shot size?

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by rbrowning2

[wymberley]

Unfortunately, the BASC pattern test is flawed. For a start it assumes that the patterns are spread equally through out the 30". Unless you're in research territory, for all practical sporting purposes a 5/6 shot test is sufficient to give a working idea. On one hand "we need to do it" but then we proceed to put people off by calling for 10 shots.

Had a feeling what was going on, which was confirmed when the Maxus 26" was mentioned. I had the same problem with mine. No one is saying it will happen, just that it can. In my case it was with 32g fibre Stone Dead Proper Cartridges. Have a read of Gough Thomas' Shotguns and Cartridges for game and clays - Chap. 7 Cartridges. You're looking for crypto balling. In my case, it was far worse than you have described.

What you could do if you still have your patterns is draw a 20" circle centred in the pattern. You know the total strike so just count the hits in the 20". The Eley look half decent and your 0.015" is throwing as near as damnit 50% - IC. Based on an average and assuming an accurate cartridge pellet count (you did count a couple before starting to shoot), I'd have a punt and suggest that you'd count 80 (26.5%) in the 20" circle and the remaining70 (23.5%) in the 20 to 30" ring. This ratio will alter with a change in choke.

If you go with the good Dr, then you're going to need an average pellet strike of 6 to ensure a 95% chance of a clean kill. Some time back the vulnerable area of a woodpigeon was carefully measured at 16 sq ins and with 314 of those in the 20" we can fit 20 (say) birds into it. So we now need 120 pellets and not 80. Therefore it immediately becomes obvious that 140 overall is not going to cut the mustard for, say, woodpigeon.

[Smokersmith]

10 minutes ago, wymberley said:

Therefore it immediately becomes obvious that 140 overall is not going to cut the mustard for, say, woodpigeon.

Would that be a male or female you’re referring to?

[Anglo]

1 hour ago, rbrowning2 said:

Q1 were  they fibre or plastic wads cartridges you patterned?

Q2 did you count the pellets in a sample cartridge of each type before pattering to check shot size?

 

A1 all were fibre. Its written in the original post.

A2 No i didn't count the pellets because I'm not interested in percentages. I have cut open all 3 different brand cartridges, the shot all looked the same size, the wads looked ok.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Anglo

[Anglo]

1 hour ago, wymberley said:

Unfortunately, the BASC pattern test is flawed. For a start it assumes that the patterns are spread equally through out the 30".

Equal spread is something I'm looking for, many of the patterns that i have produced had no obvious centre, I have considered that to be a plus.

1 hour ago, wymberley said:

 Unless you're in research territory, for all practical sporting purposes a 5/6 shot test is sufficient to give a working idea. On one hand "we need to do it" but then we proceed to put people off by calling for 10 shots.

I have already half agreed with this in my original post.

5 shots would have given me a reasonably accurate average pellet count, but may not provide enough data to judge the consistency of a cartridge in comparison with another.

1 hour ago, wymberley said:

Had a feeling what was going on, which was confirmed when the Maxus 26" was mentioned. I had the same problem with mine. No one is saying it will happen, just that it can. In my case it was with 32g fibre Stone Dead Proper Cartridges. Have a read of Gough Thomas' Shotguns and Cartridges for game and clays - Chap. 7 Cartridges. You're looking for crypto balling. In my case, it was far worse than you have described.

My dad has the book, I've flipped through it before, I just couldn't remember the term 'crpyto balling'. I'll take another look at it for sure. Thanks for the tip.

1 hour ago, wymberley said:

If you go with the good Dr, then you're going to need an average pellet strike of 6 to ensure a 95% chance of a clean kill. Some time back the vulnerable area of a woodpigeon was carefully measured at 16 sq ins and with 314 of those in the 20" we can fit 20 (say) birds into it. So we now need 120 pellets and not 80. Therefore it immediately becomes obvious that 140 overall is not going to cut the mustard for, say, woodpigeon.

I'm completely willing to accept that the list of average pellet counts for quarry in the BASC report may be wrong, but I stand by the method overall. 

Are you suggesting the BASC report is wrong for all quarry, or just woodpigeon?

If the vulnerable of a woodpigeon = 16sq inch =  average pellet count of 120 pellets in a 20 inch circle... can you provide a link to where those figures comes from originally? I don't disbelieve what you're saying, I just like to have the original sources of all data if possible.

Again thanks for the tip.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Anglo

[Guest cookoff013]

Nice !

[Anglo]

2 hours ago, Farmboy91 said:

Thank you, appreciated.

Im pretty sure the maxus is back bored, not sure about the affinity, I'm sure someone else on here will know though.

For reference, here is a read out of some of the early investigatory testing.

NC means not counted because the pattern was so bad; lack of holes & big holes where the shot had balled.

 What we learnt was the Fiocchi was equally bad in the Affinity, therefore it was not a choke/gun problem.

[Smokersmith]

28 minutes ago, Anglo said:

Equal spread is something I'm looking for, many of the patterns that i have produced had no obvious centre, I have considered that to be a plus.

Very wise ... 👍

[Farmboy91]

18 minutes ago, Anglo said:

For reference, here is a read out of some of the early investigatory testing.

NC means not counted because the pattern was so bad; lack of holes & big holes where the shot had balled.

 What we learnt was the Fiocchi was equally bad in the Affinity, therefore it was not a choke/gun problem.

Lovely job, thank you. 

I'm looking forward to getting out and patterning later this year.

[matone]

Curiously ,I had exactly the same happen when I patterned some Fiocchi GFL 20 bore cartridges ,2 out of 20 put an impressive dent in my pattern plate at 30 yds. Cut a handfull open to look at the shot but it looked perfectly normal and ran freely when tipped out. These were 28gram ,No 6.

Thanksfor your post and observations,very interesting!

Edited April 15, 2020 by matone

[wymberley]

1 hour ago, Smokersmith said:

Would that be a male or female you’re referring to?

See R.K. Murton's 'The  Wood-Pigeon'  

[rbrowning2]

 

• The Fiocchi cartridges under test were of exceptionally poor quality. The pellet count and spread of the pattern was poor. This accounts for the excessive wounding. I have cut open some cartridges and found all the pellets are all separated so large amounts of pellets must stick together in the barrel. Perhaps the lead is too soft and/or the diameter of the wad does not provide sufficient obturation.

would be good to see a picture of each cartridge type cut open to show the contents, powder, wad, shot.

I have found the eley 6 shot can be 6&1/2 and the Fiocchi 6 shot 5&1/2

 

[wymberley]

59 minutes ago, Anglo said:

Equal spread is something I'm looking for, many of the patterns that i have produced had no obvious centre, I have considered that to be a plus.

I have already half agreed with this in my original post.

5 shots would have given me a reasonably accurate average pellet count, but may not provide enough data to judge the consistency of a cartridge in comparison with another.

My dad has the book, I've flipped through it before, I just couldn't remember the term 'crpyto balling'. I'll take another look at it for sure. Thanks for the tip.

I'm completely willing to accept that the list of average pellet counts for quarry in the BASC report may be wrong, but I stand by the method overall. 

Are you suggesting the BASC report is wrong for all quarry, or just woodpigeon?

If the vulnerable of a woodpigeon = 16sq inch =  average pellet count of 120 pellets in a 20 inch circle... can you provide a link to where those figures comes from originally? I don't disbelieve what you're saying, I just like to have the original sources of all data if possible.

Again thanks for the tip.

Didn't mention it earlier, but the mobile plate is ingenious.

Good luck with the homogeneous pattern spread.

Your last query, the info comes from Burrard (pigeon size and and most other avian species) and the BASC pattern test.

When the 'not 3 hits on average (the USA version is as per BASC and 1 or 2 pellets striking the vitals) but each shot and 6 on average' kicked off, it was the Gaussian bell curve that kept us in business. If we stay with the 32g No 6 and pigeon and the even spread in 30" = 707 sq ins, 16 sq ins pigeon =44 pigeon x 6 = 264 pellets required over 303 (32g of 6s)  = 87% (sorry), well over Full but can do a little under 35 yards with Full. With the more usual Bell curve performance Full will give a central 20" effective performance at some 42 yards. Generally, it's only TC that throws any where near an even spread so it's horses for courses. A TC pattern at your limited range - limited by sufficient pellet count for smaller species. Or some choke giving an extended (but not by too much)range with a limited effective pattern area.

I have deliberately not mentioned the worth of the 6 strikes on average and the 95% performance as per BASC as that wou;ld be an opinion