The pattern is wide and not uniformed at all. We shot bluerocks with these loads (at least try). If I throw them out of a handthrower standing right next to somebody, they work very well as the shot is somewhere inside 20 yards. If we go to a club where they start at 16, then we can't hit squat. Switch to a store box and can improve greatly. So I patterned the reloads this weekend and my pattern at 20 and 30 yards was much more wide spread with holes in the pattern than a factory shell. I had never pattern the shot before as on doves and grouse last year, I had no issues with them, sure I missed some but nothing more than usual.
I have an older Texan autoloader that is dropping about 25.3 to 25.4 grains (I thought it was 26, but I just metered it). I had never payed that much attention to the brand of primers. I am using mostly 8 shot. This is coming out of a 28 inch modified 870 wingmaster. I have a large supply of 800x so I want to stay with that powder plus a large supply of AA hulls. The book says 1320 FPS (lyman 5th edition).
I am newer to reloading so I may be missing something obvious. When my son shot in a couple of junior high competitions, we used factory shells.
