Above is from a client's Langdon Package Beretta 1301 using 9 pellet Federal Flight Control part way through our patterning exercise in class last Saturday. You can see the 9th pellet flyer is visible off by itself at about 2:00 on the bullseye. 9 pellet buckshot tends to have a flyer because of the way the pellets are arranged in the shell. Even Federal Flight Control 9 pellet tends to throw a flyer. The difference is that the FFC flyer isn't as severe and tends to fly predictably.
Unfortunately that 1301 isn't his duty weapon, but now he has a solid example of how to do the same workup on his duty weapon with his duty ammo so he knows what that shotgun he was issued is really capable of.
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Aray and I are both HUGE on accountability for the projectiles we fire out of a weapon. Tom Givens is as well. Our primary concern for the types of patterns we encourage in class is to ensure that people who train with us know exactly where their pellets are going. The people we are training are primarily citizens and police officers working within the legal framework of the United States where we face a significant moral and legal impetus to make sure our projectiles only end up hitting people who are doing something bad enough to earn a gunshot wound.
That is our primary focus.
It so happens that in achieving that we also get the maximum terminal ballistic power available from a shotgun.