Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns Beretta A-301 - patterned with buckshot

So Dad's favourite and most used gun is said Beretta, sitting in a safe for 30 years. Dusted it off, slapped a truglo rmr rib mount base and holosun 407c red dot on it, triad tactical shot shell holder and comb raiser for alignment to the red dot and patterned a shotgun for the first time.

40 yards, 8 different types of 00 buckshot.

This one is a 3" magnum with 28" fixed full choke barrel, proofed 1975 so 49 years old now.

The federal premium tight wad plated stuff was ok, bigger patterns but still decent 2nd choice imo to what turned out to be the best choice.

Regular Remington 2 3/4" 9 pellet at 1325.

I documented 6 shots at 40 yards on shipping paper with a sharpie dot over 2' wide plywood, 54 pellets total, all in the proverbial body no prob but 46-48 of them (85-89%) landed inside a 12" circle.

Quick math assuming 54 gr pellets at say 1320 fps for lack of 2" on standard 30" velocity, should have about 1016 fps left at 40 and 973 at 50. Feels like it will kill deer to 50 without stretching.

That was a ton of fun, the old girl still works like a champ although it only did waterfowl for a dozen years steady then slowed down for a couple years of just a couple hunts a year. No trap or volume range stuff.

May have to fill a tag or two with it, I'm not really into the birds so this way I can resurrect it and keep it producing for the freezer. And maybe come coyote/wolf calling also.

Any buckshot hunters here? What's thoughts on this performance? I was pleased to find an affordable common load that patterned out of the fixed full choke! Makes life easy to get this going. And also, my assessment of 50 yard potential accurate?

If you are getting 85-89% inside 12" at 40 yards, you have a keeper. That's extraordinary performance. I've shot buckshot all my hunting life. By necessity sometimes, by choice others. I've hunted deer with buckhot in guns with fixed Improved Cylinder chokes to fixed Full chokes, and every manner of interchangable choke tube in between, as well an adjustable choke. 00 buckshot is notoriously hard to get to pattern very well at 40 yards. I'm still looking for a combo that would give me that kind of performance.

In terms of interchangable chokes, I have found that Improved Modified patterns 00 the best in the guns I have. Although I do have a new Trulock buckshot choke that patterns 000 very well at 40 yards. In fact, the Trulock is the only aftermarket buckshot choke I've ever tried that patterns as well as a standard flush Full choke.

Smaller buckshot, like #4, is much easier get to pattern well. I've found that #4 patterns well out of a turkey choke with a .685 constriction.

Oh wow, the bit of research I did do had me worried it would be a challenge to find a good load for the full choke so I was pleased to know two I think would carry me to 50. The 3” 12 pellet federal was my second choice and will do a similar job with more like 18” but the cost and recoil don’t seem worth it and no more pellets around poa than the rem 2 3/4. So I’ll just buy the bulk on that rem stuff. The federal 2 3/4 12 pellet load wasn’t in the same league as the 3”. I tried the Canadian challenger and score bulk, rio royal and they were big patterns, herters(was my 3rd place), and did have some federal blue box 4 buck and it patterned larger but still decent amount of pellets and would be a great coyote load to 50 I bet.

I will consider myself lucky and give this shotgun game a run. Thank you for your experience! I’m green with this shotgun buckshot thing.

#1 Buck is where it's at... if you can find it.

I have concluded a couple of things when it comes to buckshot from a 12 gauge, but your mileage may vary. When I talk about buckshot patterns, I am referring to 40 yards, for deer hunting:

1) the smaller the shot, the denser the patterns I tend to get. (Though that Trulock choke I mentioned above did tighten up 000 patterns pretty significantly.)
2) more pellets doesn't usually result a denser patterns, but usually results in an equally dense but wider pattern with more fliers. USUALLY.
3) moderate velocity, around 1100 fps (or less), loads tend to pattern better than high velocity loads when the pellet sizes and counts are the same. (For instance, Federal 3" 15 pellet 00 at 1100 fps consistently patterns better than Winchester 3 1/2" 15 pellet 00 at 1450 fps.)
4) most aftermarket buckshot choke tubes aren't any better than an OEM flush choke of the same constriction. In fact, they tend to pattern worse. The Trulock choke above is the only exception to that rule I've seen.
5) the bigger the shot, the better it patterns as the choke opens - to a limit. When it comes to OEM flush chokes, 000 and 00, for me, tend to pattern best from modified to improved modified. 0 has done well with a full choke. And #4 patterns well with full and slighlty tighter. In fact, I get my best #4 patterns from a .685 X-Full turkey choke (in a Browning Invector Plus barrel.)
6) 10 gauge guns pattern 00 buckshot better than 12 gauge guns.

This round of fun with the ole beretta morphed into me picking up a mossberg 940 pro turkey 18.5” with its .670” ported and some non ported Carlson extended in IC/M/F. Going to be fun patterning quite a few things and checking slugs too. Some great tips there above, will try to come back to this with some findings. I will run some challenger dgs-12 slugs through the beretta also as I hear they will go through all choke and out penetrate brenneke so big range day coming up. Went Holosun eps green mrs on the 940, what a sweet set up.

I’m going down the rabbit hole.