The Shooting Lane is Clear

[allaboutshooting]

Some of you know that our place was hit pretty hard by the "inland hurricane" that came through Southern Illinois on May 8th. We had a good bit of damage to our home, shop, etc. and one vehicle. The biggest loss was to our apple orchard. We lost our best producing apple trees, one was 60+ years old and produced bushels of Red Delicious apples each year.

Another "challenge" was to remove several trees from the shooting lane of my range. One of those was 120'+ and quite large in diameter. Many other projects had priority over this but it was always on my mind. The day before yesterday, I tackled that tree and managed to cut it up enough to be able to move most of it and I now have access to my range again. I've not been able to take the time go shoot but at least it's now available.

I plan to get back to my tests of the new Federal 20 gauge Heavyweight shells with the Flitecontrol Wad as soon as possible. The fall turkey season will be here before we know it and I'd like to be able to report to both you and Federal what seems to work best with that shell.

I was testing a couple of prototypes that seem to have real promise.

Thanks,
Clark

[Turkeybuster]

I am glad to hear you are getting things back in shape again Clark must have been one wicked storm.
The main thing is that nobody was hurt that is a blessing.

[Cut N Run]

Hey Clark,
 
Glad to hear that things are returning to (somewhat) normal. Those weather-related natural disasters help keep things in perspective. Hurricanes are fairly regular around here & we get too much practice at cleaning up. Those kind of storms refresh your chainsawing skills too much.
 
Jim

[Fan Club]

Nice to see you posting again and glad everyone is all right.

Sighted in my new Rem 700 in Ruger .204 yesterday...what a hoot!

Shoot on...

[CB on the run]

I hope everything works out in your favor. Sorry to hear of all the damage, it reminds me of the October 13th,2006 snowstorm that dumped 26" in my area damaging trees, collapsing buildings and knocking out all power. It was a rough time for many people. I was fortunate, only losing a half dozen 4"-8" trees and able to obtain a generator to keep my basement from flooding in our house that was only 3 1/2 months old. We only lost power for 3 days but numerous folks were w/o for up to 10 days before the effected area was restored and they were still removing tree debris over a year later.
I'm really interested in the testing of the Federal 7's as you probably remember. I've shot a number of the Federal HW FC 6's through the 3 chokes I have; a .555, .565, & .572. The .572 by far has been the best producer with the Federal load in my gun. The ports in my barrel didn't seem to effect the wad as far as I could tell. I discussed what appeared to by a 'blown' pattern with the .555 with my gunsmith who believes the constriction might have actually causes the pellets to start crossing in an 'X' patern as he describes. Some other forums report good success with the Tru-Glo SSX .550 and the Fed.#7 though but most report average to inconsistant results blaming the wad but praising the 15gr/cc shot. I hope Federal keeps a line with this shot density. I think it adds that critical 5-7 yards to the 20ga range.

CB

[allaboutshooting]

Thank you all for the kind words. We've had another couple of days of rain that have prevented the roofer from his work on the house and shop but it will happen.

I've confirmed with Federal that they are continuing to produce the Heavyweight shotshells. There was a rumor going around about their stopping production. I've always found the best way to get an answer is to go to the source, so that's what I did.

The developmental loads of the Federal Heavyweight #6 shot 20 gauge shells that I shot did well through the Swarm & Pure Gold .555 chokes and through an Undertaker .572 choke. They also did well through a Pure Gold .570.  There was a difference in the development wads and the final production wads and that apparently made a difference in performance. I've talked to others who experienced the same bridging or crowding effect that you describe, CB.

The #7 shot load is an entirely different animal, at least in my somewhat limited tests thus far. I had a very surprising pattern with the SSX and that shell http://allaboutshooting.com/article_info.php?articles_id=300

I believe that a choke is able to shape that shot charge more easily due to the size of the shot and then stabilize it within the wad in the parallel section. There's also an opportunity to reduce any harmonic problems and allow the shot to settle.

One "secret" to shooting the Flitecontrol Wad shells is to have a very clean barrel and choke. Plastic build up especially can cause some serious problems with that very long wad.  I have run some additional limited testing on some prototype chokes and some enhancements to existing chokes that hold some promise.

I'll post more results as soon as I'm back on the range.

Thanks again,
Clark