#5 hevishot probably won't pattern that great because there's not enough pellets to get great patterns.
In HTL loads 6's, 7's, 8's and 9's are where it's at for great patterns and excellent killing power.
#5's carry a lot of energy but of your pattern sucks and you can't get enough pellets on target why shoot them?
I’ve had good luck with pattering 5’s in all my guns. Granted when I shoot heavi shot I am shooting 6s but only because I got a great deal on them years ago. When I shoot lead in the other guns I shoot 5s with great success. I would suspect that the constriction is a tad too much for the 5s to pattern well. When I talked to the people at Indian Creek they asked what size shot I wanted to shoot and I want to say there was .005” difference in the choke for the larger size shot than the smaller shot size that they would recommend.
