I was able to take the new 835 to the range Thursday and Friday afternoons. It was windy both days but my range is surrounded with large trees, so wind is minimized somewhat. I can get some swirling winds at times and I had some of that. I have small flags up that indicate wind direction/speed and I try to shoot when it's calm or at least pretty calm.
I had deep cleaned the bore and as I reported, it is smooth and shiny. My routine is to clean the bore and then try 10 or so shells with each choke I shoot, without cleaning between shots. In that way I can learn how a particular gun shoots with a clean and then fouled bore. Some guns like squeaky clean bores, others like slightly fouled bores while some others like really dirty bores. You'll never really know that if you clean between each shot. When I change chokes, I clean the bore and start all over.
My initial evaluations will be with the Hevi-13 Turkey Choke .676, the SSX .670 and the Bone Collector .670. I'll try them with 3" shells and then try some 3.5" shells as well. Later, I'll go through the same routine with a few other turkey chokes in my inventory.
My goal, as always, is to find a combination that consistently yields good, even patterns without large gaps or holes, at a maximum range of 40 yards, without throwing baseball sized patterns at 25 yards.
I plan to shoot the 835 with just the bead sights and as it came from right off the shelf, since a part of my evaluation includes the performance of the Matthews Harmonic Dampner Recoil Reduction System. We'll see how that goes and I'll report to you, as well as publish my results when I've concluded my evaluation, hopefully relatively soon.
If all goes well, I will plan to take the 835 turkey hunting with me for the 4th and 5th seasons in Illinois, to put it to the ultimate test.
Thanks,
Clark
