RE: Federal Premium Shells-good or bad?
I've shot some flight controls through both ported and non ported guns. Here is my take for what its worth:
Typically, non ported tubes benefit from flight control wads more than ported ones. I found that with my Pure Gold or my Jellyhead that the patterns were very very even but were only good out to about 35 yards... 40 at the max. When I shot some of them out of my non-ported guns, and inparticular my Dads older 1100 witha fixed mod choke, I found that I had much tighter patterns than when I used a ported choke. Generally, it didn't really seem to matter what constriction I used at all, the patterns seemed to be about the same. It got my Dad about 5-10 more yards of effective pattern, and he is now carrying them for field hunts. Can't get him to come off his old standby copper plated winchesters.. why mess with success.
To sum up, I think that if you have an older, fixed constriction gun, or if you don't want to spend extra money on an aftermarket tube (which is only about as much as two boxes of lead turkey loads anymore), then Flight Control wads are a great way to go.
As r33h said though, you have to take it to the paper no matter what. For a $10-15 investment I'd say its definately worth a try.