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.