Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Mule deer 12 & 20 ga Spreader Loads?

I remember reading a article by Mule deer on shooting old fixed choke shotguns with spreader loads.
Could you provide some loads for 12 and 20 ga 2 3/4" chambers. I would like to use my childhood shotguns a few times this year and need to open the Mod and full chokes without having a gunsmith open them. I can't find the magazine article that discussed this. Also will these loads open one degree of choke? Thanks for any help!

ER, not Mule Deer, but I have found RST and Herters Spreader loads great for my old 30" barreled full choke shotguns.. I usually put one in the chamber followed by a couple regular loads..

ERW3,

I load them myself, using Ballistic Products' X-Tream insert stuck inside the shot column. You can use them with shotshell handloads from 20 gauge through 10.

That's the same appliance I use in my spreader loads. It truly opens up patterns by one degree, ie: full becomes modified, modified becomes IC- while retaining nice patterns. Better than cutting steel out of an unmolested old gun via opening up chokes or, god forbid, installing screw-ins.

I mostly use them in a 75-year-old Sauer Model 60 12-gauge, which despite having 28" barrels only weighs 6 pounds 3 ounces. It's choked the typical tight and tighter for that era, but I find the tight chokes handy for late-season pheasants and turkey hunting (it also has the typical European sling swivel studs, which are handy during turkey season).

Anyway, didn't want to open the chokes up or install screw-in chokes, so used the X-Tream spreader in some 1-ounce #6 loads for mountain grouse hunting (we have blue grouse here, which are bigger than pheasants). Unless forced to by some magazine I don't count pellet holes in patterns. Instead I shoot some paper and see what the spread looks like.

The right barrel of the Sauer shot the non-spread version of the load into a spread 12" at 25 yards, and naturally the pattern was pretty dense. With the X-Tream the shot spread 18" and the pattern was very evenly distributed. It works very well indeed, though in more open country I only put the spreader load in the right barrel.

Nice to see an answer. Sad to see writers of the past like Don Zutz not only leave the range but pass from memory.

Yeah, I knew Don pretty well--as well as some other older shotgun writers, including Bob Brister and Mike McIntosh. Miss all three of them!