cra1948,
[quote] There's not much you can do to extend its effective range or accuracy. Yeah, I know, there's a whole cottage industry developed around selling supposedly high-tech screw in chokes to those gullible enough to think spending a hundred bucks or so on the latest, greatest will enable them to kill ducks another ten yards out, or jelly-head a gobbler another five. Truth is, those little round balls run out of steam pretty fast. Same with loading for them. If you want to tinker with miracle wads and different powders to see if you can beat factory loads, more power to you....live it up. There's really a very limited amount of performance improvement possible. [quote]
To a certain extent I agree with you, especially about magic chokes. But have been experimenting considerably with newer shot since the mid-90s, and it makes far more difference than chokes.
I don't claim to be an expert, but I've read what some experts have written. As mentioned, fit to the user is important for most of us, but someone really skilled and talented with a shotgun could borrow yours, mine, and anybody else's and embarrass most of us.
I think it was Brister, probably among others, who preached the importance of shot string and did some testing that took a lot more planning and effort (and risk) than most are willing to put in. Mule Deer has written about the importance of good quality shot for good patterns although cheap shot can be beneficial for scattered short range loads.
Optimizing the combination of shot type, shot size, choke, etc. is the way to optimize distance and effectiveness. Don't think that's all that different than trying to take a rifle shooting 1.5" groups and find what will make it shoot sub MOA groups. Just not as many people have that interest in shotgun optimization as someone else mentioned.
