A look at Hornady Versatite 8-pellet 00B

[Joe Mac]

Billings' Choke rounds were our duty load when we got serious with our patrol shotgun program in 2003. They worked great for a while, including a few shootings.. When Federal bought the design from him, they worked as usual for a time, then we started getting horrendous, keyholing frisbee fliers. We complained to Billings himself, who tried to produce the ammo for us again, but we got the same fliers – apparently something had changed with the wad production, and he never could get it dialed in again (we subsequently changed to LE133 and LEB127 slugs). I still have a stash of the Choke stuff but I don't trust it for anything but practice.

[JTMcC]

Billings' Choke rounds were our duty load when we got serious with our patrol shotgun program in 2003. They worked great for a while, including a few shootings.. When Federal bought the design from him, they worked as usual for a time, then we started getting horrendous, keyholing frisbee fliers. We complained to Billings himself, who tried to produce the ammo for us again, but we got the same fliers – apparently something had changed with the wad production, and he never could get it dialed in again (we subsequently changed to LE133 and LEB127 slugs). I still have a stash of the Choke stuff but I don't trust it for anything but practice.

How do you "keyhole" a spherical buckshot pellet ???
Larger patterns, ok, but keyholing ??

Buckshot chokes can and do emulate the best flight control patterns but they aren't catching on in a widespread manner.

[Joe Mac]

How do you "keyhole" a spherical buckshot pellet ???
Larger patterns, ok, but keyholing ??

The Billings Choke rounds were an entirely encapsulated wad that flew as a single projectile, only opening upon impact (imagine the Flitecontrol wad with an enclosed front). When they were working well, they were quite accurate to 30 yards or so. When they started having problems, we'd get the occasional flier (maybe 1 out of a box of 25) that would sail away in a random direction and keyhole on target (*maybe* on target...).

[BobM]

I started buying it for my department when our vendor quit carrying Federal products. It patterned well in the 870s. I’ve been using it in my own 870s and Tac 14.

I’m almost out of it though, anyone seen it in stock.

[DocGKR]

Chris Billings had developed two different designs to limit buckshot pellet pattern dispersion.

-- The Precision buckshot load (used by SJPD) had the pellets completely encapsulated in a resin material, so the projectile flew through the air in one piece, like a slug, but then broke into individual pellets upon striking the target.

-- A shot spread reducing wad which helped control pellet dispersion, resulting in a tighter pattern, but the pellets still flew individually; this is what is used with FlightControl and VersaTite.