"Flight Control" Buckshot behavior. Bug or feature?

[314159]

I've been shooting 12 ga. #1B Flight Control loads in multiple shotguns for a long while now. Occasionally, they exhibit behavior that puzzles me and I would like to know if it is normal.
Specifically: Every few shots the buckshot load essentially stays in an incredibly tight group, say 4 inches at 50 yards. I know we don't want a true "scattergun" but spreading the pattern at least a little strikes me as more useful. Otherwise, I should just shoot slugs. I definitely see this most in guns with cylinder bore choking and much less in modified choke barrels. My hypothesis is that in a cylinder bore the wad is minimally disturbed as it leaves the barrel and the load is very nearly a solid mass semi-contained in the wad. Converesely, the modified choke might squeeze and release the pellets to produce what I consider nearly ideal patterns.
So, is this a feature of the Flight Control® wad or an annoying bug? Thanks for any good info on this.

[Unobtanium]

I've been shooting 12 ga. #1B Flight Control loads in multiple shotguns for a long while now. Occasionally, they exhibit behavior that puzzles me and I would like to know if it is normal.
Specifically: Every few shots the buckshot load essentially stays in an incredibly tight group, say 4 inches at 50 yards. I know we don't want a true "scattergun" but spreading the pattern at least a little strikes me as more useful. Otherwise, I should just shoot slugs. I definitely see this most in guns with cylinder bore choking and much less in modified choke barrels. My hypothesis is that in a cylinder bore the wad is minimally disturbed as it leaves the barrel and the load is very nearly a solid mass semi-contained in the wad. Converesely, the modified choke might squeeze and release the pellets to produce what I consider nearly ideal patterns.
So, is this a feature of the Flight Control® wad or an annoying bug? Thanks for any good info on this.

Any inconsistency in ammunition performance is a negative thing.

[oldtexan]

I've seen this phenomenon of irregular results with the LE132 1B 15 pellet load, but not with the LE132 00 9 pellet 00 load or the LE133 8 pellet 00 load, all of which use the Flite Control wad. An LEO friend of mine who was working as manager of Tac Pro Shooting Center at the time cut open an early unfired rd of the LE 132 1B load I purchased from GT Distributors in Austin. We examined it and found that the buffering material among the pellets seemed to be clumping together. He contacted a Federal rep to report this, but AFAIK he never got any feedback. This clumping might explain the pellets staying together more closely in some rds. I've also never seen irregular patterning with Hornady's 86265, the 8 pellet 00 load with the VersaTite Wad, and which seems identical in performance to LE133. I've heard the VersaTite and the Flite Control are licensed versions of the same design.

[Rich]

50Y 4inches . that's shotgun has some reach

My 12GA 870 turkey gun with extra full choke couldn't do that.

[DocGKR]

VersaTite and the Flite Control are indeed both licensed versions of the Choke shot spread reducing wad invented by Chris Billings of Utah.

We had an early lot of the Fed LE132 #1B that occasionally exhibited the same behavior as discussed above.

[314159]

Thanks for the info DocGKR, yup, I was an early adopter and bought a boatload of it. Now to look for some more recently manufactured lots. To poster Rich: I didn't take a ruler to the most recent time this happened (last week) but it really was amazingly tight at an honest 50 yards.

[Unobtanium]

This ammunition was loaded in 2016, per the box. I fired this singular round of LE1321-B from 25 yards from a 14" Benelli M4 with no muzzle constriction.
With LE13200 and LE13300, patterns are 8-12" at the same distance.

https://scontent-dfw5-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/34268664_998025608121_6205987413529985024_o.jpg?_n c_cat=0&oh=a03a77d732844d762e1c95a5108bdb44&oe=5BB57380

[Tabasco]

I noticed this with a particular Remington 870 barrel:

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?29013-Patterning-Federal-FliteControl/page2

When I cut a FC #1 Buck open, I noticed the shot was packed into the cup really tight. So tight I had to use a pointy stick to pry it out. The same lot #1 buck seems to work as advertised out of all my other shotguns, but this particular barrel shoots them like a cut shell out to 25 yards. Somewhere past 25 yards, the wad and shot finally separate and produce 3-4" patterns at 50 yards.

Unfortunately, this barrel is bead sighted.