Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints Effective Range 12 ga. mod choke for yotes

What is considered the max range ? What size shot (ammo) to use.

Gotta pattern and see. No black and white answer...

#4 Buck...

Mine is good to 45---50 yards, with 4 Buck, Rio7

#4 buck is great
BBs work pretty well also, but at closer shots

Yup #4 buck with a modified choke. 40-50 yards, though I have been known to stretch that a little just to let them know I care.

Mod choles are all over the map. Also, with a mod choke the Honady Buckshot load will pattern the tightest with that weird wad they have.

I used Full and extra full chokes with #4 buckshot, and have loaded my own custom #4, F buck, and BB loads since the mid 80's. Ballistic products is your friend on reloading components.

Of the Modified chokes I used, the Browning BPS was the tightest.

Remingtons, the Full and factory Extra full choke produced 100% patterns at 40 yards in a 20" circle Surprisingly enough, the 00 and 000 Rem factory 3" buck loads shot 100% in 15" circles at 40 yards.

If you are STUCK with a fixed modified choke, consider the Factory Hornady #4 buck load first. In my old fixed Mod choke Remington 870's, Rem, Fed, and Win 3" patterned 70% in a 30" circle at 40 yards, Ithaca 37 fixed choke was even worse. I killed a lot of coyotes with these mod 870's, but multiple shots were used at 40-50 yards. Extra full turkey choke in the Rem, Beretta 390, and 391 is amazing.

Lot of internet experts will repeat what they have read on how buckshot performs best with cylinder and Imp cylinder, but I have patterned many, Hundreds of bushshot patterns in Remingtons, Beretta's.

What is really amazing on shotgun patterns is the point of aim vs the point of impact....gun fit.

I’ve heard of a guy using some kind of a Carlson? choke, that claims it’s effective out to 70 yards with 4 buck.

Yeah... claims.

I have never patterned any kind of buckshot load as tight as the 00 buck load with federal Flite Control Wad than I shot with a cylinder tube out of my Berretta
or Mossberg.
It blew me away, at 40yds all pellets inside 20" circle.

Last week, I fired one round of that same Federal 00 load with the Flite Control wad at a 35 yard target with a cylinder bored barrel on an 870.

Eight of the nine pellets hit to point of aim inside a nice 8" circle, with the ninth about 8 inches away from the group.

I stopped right there.

You need some Hevi shot "Dead Coyote " loads. Mb

This stuff just plain works, I take a empty gallon anti freeze jug shoot it at 40yds and put all the 00 pellets through the jug.

That was the first time I've ever tested these Flite Control wads.

I've got a box of Federal No. 5 birdshot with the Flite Control wads that I picked up last year. I'm going to test those with a cylinder bore, now.

The “birdshot” loads you have, I’m gonna assume are turkey loads. If I am correct, don’t waste you ammo trying the cylinder barrel. The buckshot loads utilizing the flight control wad, are the only loads that pattern well at distance, using open chokes.

Hell, I can afford to invest one round just to satisfy my curiosity. The picture on the box has an artistic representation of a tight pattern supposedly shot by the factory at 40 yards using an IC choke.

Well, I shot one of these at an honest 40 yards with the cylinder bore barrel and it was pretty damn impressive. It would have flat knocked down a pheasant anywhere within a 30" circle.

Now I realize that the OP is about coyotes, but we got onto Flite Control wads and I'm now a believer in these things.

I recently picked up some Hornady BB loads with their version of the Flite Control wads. Those will work on a coyote, I'll bet.

I was amazed at how well the Flite Control buckshot did when I patterned them. Inside of 20 yards you could almost call them a slug.

The Hornady load won't pattern as well as the Federal loads do. For some reason Hornady can't build a good patterning shotshell.

Disappointing, but not a surprise.

I'll pattern some anyway and report back in about a week.

Federal #1 buck 15plt with Flite-Control...35 yards.

Winchester #1 buck 16plt...30 yards.

S&B #1 buck 12plt...25 yards.

Chokes are OK for birds...cylinder for yotes.

Do you mind explaining your statement about cylinder bore for coyotes?

Chokes and modified chokes are not optimum for most buckshot loads and will may actually defeat the purpose of Flite-Control and Versatite wad technology.

Can't think of a link to the data, but you can always pattern the loads yourself.

You are mostly correct about the Flite Control /Versa wads. However, those wads can often benefit from a little constriction. About .010"-.015" can often wring the ultimate performance from those wad systems. And there are some extended custom chokes made specifically for Flite Control wads that are excellent. What Flite Control cannot tolerate is any mechanism to strip the wad from the shot column as so many chokes designed for conventional shells do.

I notice your mention of buckshot. Buckshot in sizes over Number Four Buck have no advantages for coyotes and the very big disadvantage of a much smaller pellet count with fewer pellets in a usable pattern. A 3" No. Four Buck load has 41 pellets to fill in a pattern. And No. Four Buck hammers coyotes just fine. Kills them deader than Disco and when properly constricted can do that reliably and consistently to at least 50 yards. Tungsten T or BB is even better yet. And TSS #2's or #3's with 90+ pellets in the load is the ultimate coyote load in my experience. Loads that have a swarm of deep penetrating pellets that will break down a going away coyote at extended ranges are costly, but coyotes don't get away from a hunter either.

Those wads were designed to hold the shot column mostly intact ~10 yards before spreading out. Don't see any benefit to defeating or modifying that performance.

Perhaps with some shells there may be some benefit.

While those projectiles you mentioned are demonstrably effective, I actually don't hunt with a shotgun. It is mostly there for the Wiley that sneaks up behind the set.

I have at least 5000 flite control wads from pulled down shells. Cylinder, Imp Cylinder, and some modifieds work well with them, but a browning BPS Modified blew the pattern with the Flite control wads.

Shotguns are very different, and how they fit you will determine the point of aim, vs the point of impact.

Pattern your shotguns, use some kind of support to stabilize your point of aim as Anticipating the heavy recoil causes all kinds of aiming errors.

Coyotes can take a lot of killing, if they are moving, hit them again!

Out of curiosity, what choke do you like in your shotgun for TSS #2? I know every shotgun is different.

I'm using about .050" of constriction from my bore size.