PIO for shotgun ammo

[aippi]

I have had two incidents over the years where 870 police barrels were returned with both guys saying the rear sight was all the way down and they were still high with slugs. And the buckshot group POI was way lower then the slugs.

I repositioned the read sight and hit the range. I was using just plain *** 00 buck and Remington sluggers. No issue, both POI pretty much the same and the slugs were dead on at 25 yards. I found out both were using their Department required ammo and it was the new slugs with tactical wadding and the buckshot was Tactical low recoil stuff. I don't remember the brands.

My question is how may people have found this issue where the POI of the center of the buckshot pattern is much lower then the POI of slugs and is it only with that type of ammo.

I don't want to take anymore perfect barrels back. I was able to resolve the issue on one by installing a higher front sight and the guy was satisfied as he used mostly slugs. Having an idea from you guys what some of the issues you have found with various brands can save me the cost and hassle of having to go buy this stuff and shoot it. I can benefit from your experience with this stuff.

[FatalKitty]

this the feeral LE1300* stuff?

I have a case of fed tac slugs and the LE low recoil 8 pellet 00 stuff and I don't notice a significant drop with the Low recoil buck at 15/20/25 yards (bead sighted barrel)

[aippi]

What's up with all the shotgun guys? I answer hundreds of questions with professional advice for you guys. I ask one and only one guy helps.

[Barbarossa]

I have no knowlege of slug POI/POA. I'd answer you if I could JD.

[aippi]

Thanks for kicking in anyway. Talked to an LEO tonight who has the same issue with tactical flight control slugs. I am just trying to learn which brands are know for this without out my cheap *** having to go buy a bunch of different ones. I am told the slugs are very accurate but the POI is higher then the center of a pattern of buckshot.

[Thefeeder]

><

JD,

You may be asking a bid much from the crowd. You may have to do it yourself.

My .02 would be to look at the velocity difference between the 00 and slug.....you may find the larger the difference in velocity the larger the POI difference.

Take my advice with a bit of salt as it is coming from a hunting/clays man.

[RaymondMillbrae]

Here's my take on the matter.

First, what is the grain and FPS on each of the two rounds they were shooting? (00-buck vs slug).

I ask because I have learned that on a shotgun, POA and POI (zero) should be done with slugs.

Slugs are the preferred choice for accuracy and longer distance shots. (20-yards and beyond). Im sure you can shoot these distances with buck-loads, but the patterns will open up enough that there will only be a very few buck shot balls on target. When this happens, the buck shot will not distribute the force like a 00-buck should.

Anyhoo...my findings have proven that when I zero my shotgun with hot loads, the low recoil loads will shoot 6" to 12" inches higher at 25-yards. This is caused by something called "barrel lag time".

The slower moving round will "lag around" in the barrel enough to be affected by the flip (rising) of the barrel. You would think this is not possible...but I have proven this to myself a few times over in my own personal shotshell reloading journey.

Bottom line, if I zero my shotgun with a specific slug, I must continue to use that same load to ensure my zero does not change. If I home-roll shotshell slugs using a different powder recipe, then back to the range I go to rezero the shotgun to that slug load.

Remember that this "shooting high" phenomenon is always caused by the shotgun being zeroed with a faster moving round. Then when a slower moving round is shot behind it, it will always hit high.

Consider that the "weight" of the load is also a factor in all this.

Just my thoughts on this topic...while sitting in my truck punching away on my Droid.

In Christ: Raymond

[FatalKitty]

touching on what Raymond is saying...


I noticed on my box of remington slugs that the trajectory actually rises above the muzzle for the first 50 yards.



my federal slugs don't have this chart but it's possible it's the same, and if these guys are zeroing at 50 yards with a slug, then buck isn't going to do the same thing.

but i'm pretty sure that the LE low recoil buck is shooting a lot slower than the tac slugs are - if this theory is correct it would have to be due to amount of recoil, not speed of projectile. i'm not a ballistics major so I have no idea.

since I have a bead and I shoot my shotgun all the time I pretty much have my POI and holdover memorized, so I don't know how much of a help i can be to determining actual POI vs sighting.

[Thefeeder]

><

I'm sure JD is aware of these and other facts....he is looking for people who have use a specific brands and found that the POI is really off

He needs the brand names.

[FatalKitty]

I'm sure he is too... maybe the departments he's getting feedback from are not.

[aippi]

Good stuff guys. Thanks ray and kitty as explaining this in simple speak helps idiots like me understand. This gives me the verbage I need to explain this if it happens again. Two issues with barrels over the years is not a major deal but I was at a loss to explain what was going on. Being old school and never using any of this modern ammo put me at a loss. And no, we did not use flint locks when I started my career, they had just moved up to the modern ball and cap by then.

Feeder is correct as knowing the brands helps me when the issue comes up. No way I am going to get Range time to find out for about four Months. If you have every lived in Michigan you would understand why. But the info you guys have given helps big time.

[M1A Rifleman]

For me with a 590A1, the peep needs max elevation to be zero at 50yds, however, both slugs and 00 seem to have the same POI.

[RaymondMillbrae]

Glad it helped.

I cannot take credit for this information, as Benny Hill (the shotgun guru) enlightened me on this a while back.

In Christ: Raymond

[eric2063]

JD...

I have had the same issues of which you speak using the issued Ranger 9 and 12 pellet (6 to 10 inches high average at 25 and 50 yards) as well as the Winchester 1oz slugs (which were like a box of chocolates, it was always "WTF was that?" with those rounds). The issues were out of both a well used Remington police barrel with the standard rifle sight and then the same action with a new Vang barrel.

But neither the 9 or 12 pellet Ranger ammo had any problems with a POI when running the Vang barrel, it's a weird thing I just thought was an issue with that particular shotgun because we bought them used from a larger department so they were already rode hard.

We were never allowed to use the Federal low recoil ammo and I did get to pattern my gun with the Remington low recoil and it was dead on but then the contract changed and it went away. I only noticed about a 2 in change (high) POI using the Remington Slugger 1oz, now the older Federal 12 pellet buck was always dead on POI from 15 to 25 then tended to have a lot of flyers the further out you went.

I just knew not to mix my ammo, if it was Winchester Buck then it was Winchester slugs in the side saddle and I knew to hold low, hell my old boss made us qual as much with the shotgun as we did with the pistols. But then again we were lucky, we were issued your shotguns and didn't have to rotate them so we could pattern them when ever there was a change in the contract ammo. I don't know of very (read any) other agencies with that luxury and we had a pretty fat ammo budget then, things are much much different now.
Hope this helps
Eric

[GrizzlyGuy]

My wife has a new Benelli M4. We used the following ammo from Ammoman.com (as they describe it):

FEDERAL TACTICAL 00 BUCKSHOT
FEDERAL PART NUMBER # LE13200
LAW ENFORCEMENT - HIGH ENERGY - LOW RECOIL
AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC / 9- PELLET

FEDERAL TACTICAL SLUGS
FEDERAL PART NUMBER # LE127RS
LAW ENFORCEMENT
HIGH ENERGY-LOW RECOIL
AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC

Right out of the box, the M4's POI = POA for the buckshot at about 25 yards. With no sight adjustments the slugs were shooting about 6-8" high at 100 yards. We didn't get around to doing it since the buckshot was right on, but I'm planning on zeroing with the slugs at 50 yards and seeing how that affects the buckshot POI at 5-25 yards.