X2 on the deep cleaning of the barrel. My patterns improved substantially after doing so in my bps 10 26"barrel with .690 kicks. I would think that maybe the differences in 10" numbers between 2 seemingly identical setups might simply be due to the different geographical areas we live in .Air temperatures,air density, elevation above sea level would all play a part, not to mention manufacturing tolerances in barrels, chokes and ammo. I can't say for sure that is always the case when we see members shooting great patterns, while others struggle with the exact same setup, but I would imagine it has to play a significant part in it. 150s in the ten at 40 is plenty good for hunting, but I would agree that it should probably put up better numbers than that.