00 Flitecontrol - bad pattern

[shootist26]

Took my 870 out today to do a quick pattern verification with a couple brands of buckshot I have been stocking up on. It is an 870P with an imp cyl barrel

The Remington Managed Recoil 8-pellet 00 buckshot (RL12BK00) as expected patterned very well. Of all the standard bulk buckshot brands, this one patterns the best out of my barrel. Here is a 15yd shot on a standard IDPA target


The concern, however, was when I loaded up some of my old Federal LE Flitecontrol 9-pellet 00 buckshot (LE13200). Flitecontrol has normally patterned very well out of my barrel, so I'm not sure exactly what happened this time around. I tested 5 rounds of it; 3 patterned alright and 2 of them were pretty bad. Could possibly be a result of faulty wads or premature separation?

Here's an example of a bad one. This is a 20 yd shot. Notice the 5 fliers out of the -0 area. Normally it shouldn't be a problem keeping all 9 pellets in the -0 at this range.

[subsonic]

Is the barrel nice and clean? I have seen some weird stuff when I started to get a plastic buildup in the bore.

Is your barrel ported? Ports seem to make wad gunk build up near them.

[shootist26]

Is the barrel nice and clean? I have seen some weird stuff when I started to get a plastic buildup in the bore.

Is your barrel ported? Ports seem to make wad gunk build up near them.

clean barrel. Standard 870P imp cyl. No ports.

[GJM]

Another reason to use a slug if an exact pattern is critical.

[ASH556]

Wow, that's very interesting...in a bad way. I use the #1 Flitecontrol load and out of my 18.5" Benelli Cylinder barrel I get groups like this at 25yds:

[41magfan]

I would guess that you're experiencing an anomaly of some sort with the ammo. I've observed many thousands of Flitecontrol loads fired through an inventory of 100+ shotguns and I don't recall there being any performance issues with the inevitable variables you encounter with that many SG's.

[shootist26]

has anybody else experienced this with Flitecontrol buck? Right now, I'm attributing it to wad failure

[DocGKR]

Yes, we have seen this before; they are shotgun loads, sometimes weird things happen...

[czech6]

We've noted similar issues with recently aquired LE13200, lot number 5p-41vm147. We're getting 15+ inch patterns at 25 yards, versus the usual sub 10" groups. The lot number is printed on the inside of the tongues of the boxes. I'd be interested to see if your having problems with the same lot of ammo.

[shootist26]

We've noted similar issues with recently aquired LE13200, lot number 5p-41vm147. We're getting 15+ inch patterns at 25 yards, versus the usual sub 10" groups. The lot number is printed on the inside of the tongues of the boxes. I'd be interested to see if your having problems with the same lot of ammo.

Don't know the lot number of mine. But they were purchased in 2012 or so.