I recently took an "Introduction to Defensive Shotgun" class. As part of the class, we got to pattern our shotguns, and I'd like to know what people think.
My gun for the class was a police trade-in Remington 870 Police Magnum with a manufacturing date of 1989 (I think). I don't have a lot of experience with shotguns, but it sure felt like the action on this thing was really smooth. I only had two bobbles with the gun (and, of course, both times it was for a timed-test), and I'm 95% sure the bobbles were user error, so that's good.
The bad is that I think my barrel sucks. I didn't get a picture of my 5-yard patterns, but both Hornady Black 8-pellet reduced recoil and Fiocchi Defense Dynamics 9-pellet #1, the patterns were much bigger that I wanted (I know @RustyCrusty has gotten some great results from this Fiocchi load, but not me).
At 10-yards, I switched to Federal FliteControl 8-pellet 00 (LE13300). Not bad
At 15-yards, however, the FFC started opening up. The bottom spread is Hornady Black (with their VersaTite wad). This pattern was really important to me, as the longest indoor shot in my house is 13 yards.
At 25-yards with FFC... well, they're all on the target, but I'm not sure I would take that shot
@TCinVA and @LHS (or anyone else) can you comment? I don't have much basis for comparison. I was really, really disappointed by the Hornady and Fiocchi loads; I expected more out of them.
Some other things I learned from the class:
Bead sights absolutely suck. I need to put a dot on this gun, but the receiver isn't drilled/tapped for an optic, so I need to find a gunsmith.
LockTite is a thing. I discovered half-way through the class that I hadn't LockTite-d my flashlight. It flew off in embarrassing fashion.
A dump-pouch is a poor way to have your reloads, especially a low(-er) hanging one. I need to get myself some more Esstac cards (or something similar) or one of the 5.11 belt pouches I saw that is sized to hold a box of shotgun shells.
(sorry about the double-post; this was probably the right place to put my questions)