Rio 8 pellet buckshot?

[TCinVA]

Your experience may be more recent than mine so I advise readers to use your observations as a guide. In general and not pertaining to Rio, a safe generalization is yesterday's gold standard ammo brands will have cheaper and lower quality versions. At Walmart you might see Winchester AA shells located next to terrible quality Winchester promotional shells which may or may not "work". In the distant past the cheaper shells usually functioned. I think these crappy shells are made with budget level components, especially the case itself.

All ammo manufacturers have tiers of ammunition with higher quality components and quality control being used as you go up in price.

Most of the Rio ammo I've seen has been their lowest tier ammunition because people buy the bulk stuff to use in classes. Even so, their bulk stuff compared to other manufacturers bulk stuff is another level down in quality. I would happily take Federal or Winchester's bulk birdshot ammo lines any day over Rio. When I buy bulk birdshot it's usually Federal Top Gun or Winchester Super Target and both have been worlds better. Same goes for experiences with other bulk buckshot and slugs.

I'm not comparing Rio's cheapest stuff to Federal Flight Control. Bulk ammo to bulk ammo, Rio is the worst out of the bunch. Remington hasn't been a whole lot better in recent years. Federal, Winchester, Fiocchi, and S&B tend to be better bets.

[03RN]

I got 2 cases of their low recoil stuff years ago at a price lower than the 100rd federal bulk packs. Almost half price from them. They pattern like shit but they all went bang.

I shot one case and still have the other one for pinging steel.

[RevolverRob]

I bought a couple of boxes of 8-pellet Rio once. The patterns were acceptable inside 5y beyond that, no.

Reminds me I need to shoot up the rest of it. I'll put it through my single shot 12 just to work on push-pull recoil control and reloads.

[mmc45414]

Not sure the $6 is a smoking deal, I bought some 9 pellet from Bud's last year for $3.55.
Shot some (three boxes) of it in Tom's course, and it patterned very poorly. Also have some #1 I plan to screw around with.

[diananike]

I got 2 cases of their low recoil stuff years ago at a price lower than the 100rd federal bulk packs. Almost half price from them. They pattern like shit but they all went bang.

I shot one case and still have the other one for pinging steel.

It was hard to find low recoil 00 buckshot up here until recently.
I bought about 10 boxes of Rio LR to tide me over.
It patterned like crap in every gun I tried it in except my modified choke 590 SBS.
Now that good stuff like Federal Flitecontrol and Hornady Versatite low recoil. Or even Remington 8 pellet (which I have a soft spot for) is available the 8 boxes of Rio I have left just sit waiting for the world to end.

[EzGoingKev]

I have run some Rio 9 pellet through my Turknelli T4 and Benelli M4. It cycled 100% reliably but the patterns were really wide.