Test results: Apex #9 w/ 3 Trulock chokes

[mcw3734]

I'm making the switch from a 10-gauge to a 20-gauge this year and so yesterday I tested three chokes to see what worked best.

Gun: Remington 11-87 Sportsman, 20-gauge, 26" barrel
Ammo: Apex 3", 1-5/8 oz. TSS #9 (590 pellet count)
Chokes:
     .560 – Trulock Federal TSS, F7TREM20560
     .565 – Trulock Precision Hunter, non-ported, PHREM20565
     .575 – Trulock Precision Hunter, non-ported, PHREM20575

I took two shots with each choke at 40 yards and cleaned the barrel with Butch's before each of the six individual shots. To count, I eyeballed the greatest pellet mass, drew a 10" circle, split that into quadrants, and counted them NE+SE+SW+NW = Total. Temps in the 50s, calm winds.

.560 – shot 1: 64-55-64-69 = 252
.560 – shot 2: 76-66-56-55 = 253

.565 – shot 1: 86-71-101-73 = 331
.565 – shot 2: 73-65-71-54 = 263

.575 – shot 1: 74-52-66-72 = 264
.575 – shot 2: 84-64-55-109 = 312

While I feel all six shots were turkey killing patterns, I'm a little disappointed that no one choke stood out as the clear winner. I did this test in 2020 with my 10-gauge (results on 10-gauge page), one choke clearly won out for numbers and consistency. I was hoping for the same, but don't really feel I got that.

Looking only at the numbers, I'm giving the nod to the .565. In six of eight quadrants, it had 70+ hits compared to four on the .575, and one with the .560. However, the .560 has the most consistent numbers. When looking at the pattern beyond the 10" circle, the .565 and .575 were comparable, while the .560 had many more fliers well away from point of aim.

So... I think I'm going to settle on the .565. Though I'm going to keep to the .575 as I may test #7.5 shot for grins and giggles in the future.

For the other nerds out there who have tried tests like this, what has been your results for consistency of 10" pellet hits between shots? Again, I'm kind of disappointed with the 50+ count swing between shots. But that could be a number of factors like me not eyeballing the 10" circle correctly, inconsistent barrel cleaning between shots or maybe the shotshells themselves (though I wouldn't think so).

Long post I know, but maybe it'll be useful to somebody else.

[crow]

I like the 6 out of 8 quadrants in the .565 with the 9's
if you later go to a larger shot size the .575 may be the most even patterns.

the .560 sounds like it may be over choked with the fliers out of the 20"
even though its consistent it's also consistently the  lowest 10"

if your careful your doing the between shots cleaning the same, I would lean more it's the shell's

get a different color sharpie and draw another 10" to see if it's your eyes, probably won't be

[mcw3734]

When I was cleaning the barrel between shots I was getting lots of these clear, very thin shavings. Almost like whisper thin saran wrap that I'm guessing was plastic fouling. I've never seen that before. And really, on two occasions I had to clean the barrel twice because I could still see gunk in there.

Could that be from shooting supper hot Apex loads? Did that heavy fouling affect the pattern consistency? I don't know and I'm not going to lose sleep over it, but I'm just curious.

[BandedSpur]

I get those ribbons of thin plastic fouling with my handloads that I know are low pressure, so I don't think you are necessarily looking at super hot loads. That is in fact plastic fouling and seems to be the nature of the beast. Because of that plastic fouling, I pull a dry boresnake through the bore from breech to muzzle four times after each shot to remove the vast majority of the plastic fouling before I scrub with Shooter's Choice. If you go straight in with Butch's or Shooters Choice, that melt plastic, without boresnaking first, you can end up with a mess of melted plastic that can be difficult to get out.

While I am shooting a 12 vs your 20, I get the most consistent patterns with a .675 as compared with a .660. .665, or .670 (somewhat analogous to your .560, .565, .570). The .675 will often give me 10" counts that are within 5 pellets of each other over a run of three patterns, where I see more variation with the tighter chokes.

[mcw3734]

Banded - thanks for the info. Honestly, I guess I really don't know how to properly clean a shotgun barrel with the plastic fouling issue. I've always started with Butch's... guess that's not a great idea for shotguns. Good to know.