The Reaper
03-15-2006, 23:13
Anyone who uses a shotgun for serious purposes knows that the proper technique is not the "spray and pray" method. You aim it and want as many pellets as possible to hit the target at the same time.
Normal shotgun barrels, especially the cylinder bore short barreled ones, have a tendency to throw wide patterns with lots of voids. When you have a 00 Buck load of only 7-15 .33 caliber pellets, this can be critical.
There were a number of tricks shooters have been using to various degrees of success, most squeezed the pellets a bit more, which caused them to deform one another and open up the pattern despite the more restrictive choke.
Along came Hans Vang. Hans is a real craftsman who lengthens the shotgun barrel's forcing cone, back-bores it, and adds compensating ports (if desired). I had been trying to get one of his barrels for my Benelli for years without success. His booth was one of the ones I visited at the SHOT this year. He told me that I should try his Remington 870 barrel first, so I sent mine in for his ported VCS treatment. It looked very nice when I got it back a week later, so I slapped it back on the gun and took it to the range along with a few 00 Buck loads I had laying around to try out. None of them were the tightest patterning loads that the DEA found when testing his barrels.
Holy Cow!
At seven yards, the worst load was tighter than I had ever gotten with the same gun before. At the seven yard line, the best load of the three, the Federal F127 Premium, put all 9 pellets into 3" group. The head shot in the pics below shows the pattern of the Federal load. You can literally keep all of the pellets in a head shot out to 15 yards with the right ammo. This is the length of the average house, people!
The S&B, a budget 00 Buck load from the Czech Republic was not much worse, but likely due to the fact that the loads were not buffered, did throw a pellet ot two outside an otherewise excellent pattern. The Winchester was a disappointment only in comparison to the other two loads.
The gun also had less felt recoil, and the very effective porting kept the muzzle down without creating excessive flash or blast.
The sights were well regulated, and were dead on the money out to 25 yards.
As a final test, I took a full mag of the S&B and shot two rounds on the silhouette rapid fire at 7 yards, two at 10 yards, two at 15 yards, and two at 25 yards. The large holes are where the wads hit the target and stuck in the plywood backing. At the seven yard line, all pellets were in the 10 and X rings. At ten yards, the majority of the pellets were in the X and ten rings with a few out at nine. By 15 yards, I had thrown just four pellets into the eight ring. From the 25 yard line, I pulled one shot low and right, throwing a total of nine more pellets into the eight ring, four into the seven ring, and one (finally) off the scored portion of the target, though it would have still been a solid pelvis shot. As you can see from the photo, the center of the target is pretty well smoked, and out of the 72 pellets fired, all but 18 are in the 9 ring or better. There are only four pellets outside the 8 ring. That is an incredible pattern density, especially for a a cheap unbuffered buckshot load. I am not a shotgun master by any means, but I could have stood at the 25 yard line and put 72 .33 caliber holes in the target in the kill zone of the target in less than eight seconds. Theoretically, this would equate to a .33 caliber automatic weapon at a cyclic rate of almost 600 rpm for an eight second burst emptying a 72 round mag.
Those who know shotguns will realize how impressive this is. I was amazed.
Hans sells complete Remington 870s, 870 Police Magnums, Mossberg 590-A1s, Winchester 1300s, and 11-87 Police Specials. He currently sells 870 barrels and I believe will work on your 870 barrel, or the other brands listed above. The work is not cheap, but few things worth it are. You can buy an 18" barreled Remington 870 Express, get a mag extension and have Vang modify your barrel for less than $500.
Check out the Vang website for more pattern info, pricing, order forms, etc. He gets my highest recommendation.
https://www.vangcomp.com/
HTH
TR
Normal shotgun barrels, especially the cylinder bore short barreled ones, have a tendency to throw wide patterns with lots of voids. When you have a 00 Buck load of only 7-15 .33 caliber pellets, this can be critical.
There were a number of tricks shooters have been using to various degrees of success, most squeezed the pellets a bit more, which caused them to deform one another and open up the pattern despite the more restrictive choke.
Along came Hans Vang. Hans is a real craftsman who lengthens the shotgun barrel's forcing cone, back-bores it, and adds compensating ports (if desired). I had been trying to get one of his barrels for my Benelli for years without success. His booth was one of the ones I visited at the SHOT this year. He told me that I should try his Remington 870 barrel first, so I sent mine in for his ported VCS treatment. It looked very nice when I got it back a week later, so I slapped it back on the gun and took it to the range along with a few 00 Buck loads I had laying around to try out. None of them were the tightest patterning loads that the DEA found when testing his barrels.
Holy Cow!
At seven yards, the worst load was tighter than I had ever gotten with the same gun before. At the seven yard line, the best load of the three, the Federal F127 Premium, put all 9 pellets into 3" group. The head shot in the pics below shows the pattern of the Federal load. You can literally keep all of the pellets in a head shot out to 15 yards with the right ammo. This is the length of the average house, people!
The S&B, a budget 00 Buck load from the Czech Republic was not much worse, but likely due to the fact that the loads were not buffered, did throw a pellet ot two outside an otherewise excellent pattern. The Winchester was a disappointment only in comparison to the other two loads.
The gun also had less felt recoil, and the very effective porting kept the muzzle down without creating excessive flash or blast.
The sights were well regulated, and were dead on the money out to 25 yards.
As a final test, I took a full mag of the S&B and shot two rounds on the silhouette rapid fire at 7 yards, two at 10 yards, two at 15 yards, and two at 25 yards. The large holes are where the wads hit the target and stuck in the plywood backing. At the seven yard line, all pellets were in the 10 and X rings. At ten yards, the majority of the pellets were in the X and ten rings with a few out at nine. By 15 yards, I had thrown just four pellets into the eight ring. From the 25 yard line, I pulled one shot low and right, throwing a total of nine more pellets into the eight ring, four into the seven ring, and one (finally) off the scored portion of the target, though it would have still been a solid pelvis shot. As you can see from the photo, the center of the target is pretty well smoked, and out of the 72 pellets fired, all but 18 are in the 9 ring or better. There are only four pellets outside the 8 ring. That is an incredible pattern density, especially for a a cheap unbuffered buckshot load. I am not a shotgun master by any means, but I could have stood at the 25 yard line and put 72 .33 caliber holes in the target in the kill zone of the target in less than eight seconds. Theoretically, this would equate to a .33 caliber automatic weapon at a cyclic rate of almost 600 rpm for an eight second burst emptying a 72 round mag.
Those who know shotguns will realize how impressive this is. I was amazed.
Hans sells complete Remington 870s, 870 Police Magnums, Mossberg 590-A1s, Winchester 1300s, and 11-87 Police Specials. He currently sells 870 barrels and I believe will work on your 870 barrel, or the other brands listed above. The work is not cheap, but few things worth it are. You can buy an 18" barreled Remington 870 Express, get a mag extension and have Vang modify your barrel for less than $500.
Check out the Vang website for more pattern info, pricing, order forms, etc. He gets my highest recommendation.
https://www.vangcomp.com/
HTH
TR