Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Why is a "Short Shot String" Good?

Amazing, isn't it, that a well-respected professional ballistician reports something similar to what you've seen?

Found the video that I was thinking of when this got going.
I have never seen the string bend, but I don't get to shoot under the lights.
In high school physics we used a spinning plank with a center axle, that had a pair of seats on the ends. Throwing a ball to the other person on the opposite end gave the distinct impression that the ball tracked a path along a curve. An optical illusion. And a demonstration of lead required to hit a moving target.
I can not say that shot does not curve. But the times I have tried the water shot and looked for the curve I have not been able to see it.

Shot String on the Water

The shot on the water just may be the optical illusion.

So,
would it make a different picture on a long pattern paper if you drove it behind the car at 40mph, or stood and swung the gun as fast as you could thru a fixed sheet laid out over 30 feet or so?

I have only patterned at a fixed 4 foot square sheet but have the Brister book with the photo of the long car trailer pattern.

Would the same elipitical shape happen from swinging the gun fast on the pattern paper instead of the round that is seen on a fixed gun pattern shot?

Any one ever try it?

Now that would be an interesting experiment, especially at 40-60 yards.

First thought for me is that swinging the shotgun as fast as one can is not the key to the answer. When one is 40 to 60 yards back swinging on a long crosser, you are not moving the shotgun as fast as you can. If you do you will most certainly miss.

Instead you are trying to match the speed of the target, plus a little. In fact on long crossers you move the shotgun at a relatively slow pace, because at 50 yards a little movement back at the gun is a pile out at the target. Track a big jet a couple miles out with your finger. The jet is doing 300mph plus and your finger is moving slow.

Easily proven by holding your thumb and first finger a couple inches apart. Then compare the distance the gap covers at 10yards and at 50yards.

I agree, in most circumstances anyway, but it would still be an interesting experiment, due to the distance.

I have had to swing like hell to to lead ducks and geese with a 40-mph tailwind, even at 35 yards, and more so at 50. And the faster I swung, the more I hit. I would wager the shot string was bending somewhat in those conditions.

You come from behind and shoot swing through?

Swing-through was the only way I could hit anything in those circumstances.

Under more normal conditions I mount the gun while watching the target, and shoot when the muzzle(s) look right. Pretty much the standard modern form. But at those ranges, with the wind battering me and the shotgun, a hard swing-through was the only method that worked.

A 40MPH wind will definitely bend the shot string. The unprotected shot more so than those the main cluster. Should be no different than what it does to a bullet.

Exactly.

I brought this subject up at Nationals about 4 years ago while we were eating lunch under the pavilion. There were some guys shooting some long bird games on the skeet fields right down in front of us about 30 yards away. I happen to notice the phenomena of the bending, cone-shaped cloud and brought the subject up.

Realize that the group of folks I was eating with were not novices by any stretch of the imagination. All industry people and shooters who have seen probably just as many shot shells fired as I have but whose shooting ability varied from C class to Master to National Champion.

The opinions also varied as to what the shape of the shot string. One of my friends insisted the shot string was so short it was shaped like a Frisbee, or a disc. Basically like a paper patterning board pattern. Some believed it to be simply tubular. Most of the better shooters described it exactly as I have, having seen a tornado shaped cone that bends dependent on the direction of the target's flight/movement of the barrel.

It was quite interesting to ask folks I knew just milling around there who were all serious shooters and hear their answers.

Edited to stress that there is a correlation between better shooters having better vision. Even though the lower classed shooters had seen millions of fired shot shells as well, their perception of the shot string was quite different

Excellent ! Brister's book covers this subject well !

To cause the shot pattern to curve by swinging the muzzle
violates the laws of motion. An object in motion goes in a
straight line unless acted on by another force such as wind
gravity etc. As I mentioned earlier the "curve" is an
illusion caused by watching the target not the shot. In
fact the "curve" will be in a direction oposite the muzzle
movement.

Fun but useless topic IMO shot string is effected simply by a combination of air density, density altitude, wind and off course the actual pellets themselves. If I am correct then with every changing second, things change

After firing hundreds of thousands of rounds I pay no attention at all to shot string!

Most shooters never learn where to look to see the shot string.

Randy