What choke and shell combo are y'all getting the best pattern with? This is primarily for a kid, so I wasn't wanting super tight pattern. What y'all got?
I have a Affinity that I let my daughter use last season. She is 28 but has no hunting experience and wanted to try it. I was using a Carlson Long Beard .568 choke and Winchester Long Beard 3" #5's. The pattern was extremely tight. I was at Wal-Mart and they had Winchester Double X 3" #4's on clearance. So I tried a box of those and the pattern was perfect for a newbie. At 30 yards the pattern was even but not too tight, exactly what I wanted for her. She did not get an opportunity but I was confident that the set up was forgiving enough for a first time hunter.
This set up is not as sexy as many you hear about on this forum but I was happy with it and my daughter was too. Good luck to your daughter and thank you for taking her hunting.
My 10 year old shoots a Carlson 575 in his with TSS handloads. If it were a person with little to no shooting experience I would probably want a more open choke for those close shots.
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I would try couple boxes of the Federal HW 7 in 2 3/4 shells .. you can still buy these from Rogers Sporting Goods .....
Indian Creek .562 with the Apex TSS #9's.
Carlson's .575 with handloaded 2 3/4" 1 7/16 oz #9s. Does 270-280 in the 10" at 40. Before I had the gun drilled and tapped and put a vortex venom on it I used a .585 Trulock with the same hand loads. Did around 230-240 in the 10" and a good deal more "forgiving" with less of a hot core.
As Coop said, a .585 choke with TSS 9's will provide a forgiving pattern and still be deadly.
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There is you some comparison pictures. The Trulock .585 is the one with red sharpie and the Carlson's .575 is the blue. Both pictures are the best I've got out of both chokes with the load I use and both are a 9" circle since I couldn't find my 10" template so I used a paper dinner plate. The Trulock was 241 if I'm not mistaken and the Carlson's is 288.
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20190210/014baa9dcfb5844169cd9ddc95870423.jpg)
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20190210/496549ad40a24a70d66d4e52889d3cf9.jpg)
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Thanks for the suggestions
For a kid, I would try the factory full.
TSS #9 will give the best pattern and amazing results as well with several different chokes.