Chuck glad to see ya back I thought you sold your hunting stuff and gave it up. Anyhow I'm not sure what your typical distances are and your potential max shot distance but 12" circle at 20 yards will be about 24" at 40. You may want to try a full choke. I went through a lot of patterning this year with my new shotgun. I used to use the 3" Remington 00 out of my 870 and the shells have changed over the years. I missed 2 nice bucks and decided to check my pattern and it was horrible. I got lucky this year and found a versa max at Wally World for $450 and I threw on a kicks buck kicker shooting federal premium 3.5" 00. At 40 yards I'm getting 15 out of 18 pellets in a 12" circle.