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.