I believe the count in the brain/spine areas would be as follows:

12, 12, 15, 13....respectively

not bad...did you pattern any at 40 yards?

Those aren't bad at all.Looks like the Star-dot has a more even pattern to me,and from what I gather you're saying it hit 15 in the brain/spine..which was more than the others right?Not just because I recommended the star-dot,but also from the looks of the patterns I would stay with it.I am suprised the #4's aren't doing good in your gun.They all are good patterns.

Campo,how many hits were there on the entire paper?That is a 11"x11" target right?I would also take that into consideration...would that make one choke stand out now?

Looks pretty good to me, have to agree anyone of them will do! [8D]

How's this?

It's all good.

Hal

I like ur groupings but may i suggest a turkey choke but id definetely take the 2nd one

Campo,

I personally like the first pattern, with the Mad Max choke. We can't really compare the last pattern with anything,because you used a different load AND choke, in comparison to the first thre patterns.

I like the first pattern primarily because there are no major gaps and I believe the overall pellet count is higher. The Star Dot would be my second choice, very close, but second...

When I pattern, I actually use a 9inch pie plate and count the total number of hits. I then examine the pattern for "gaps", or areas of very low shot density. I don't like counting just the number of hits in the spine/head, simply because if the bird takes one step, I want to know that my shot is still going to take him down. Even at 10 yards, whereby my gun throws a slug pattern, there are enough stray shots outside the core (probably less than 10%) that would efficiently knock down a bird.

Remember, it only takes ONE pellet in the head/spine to kill a bird...

I shot this pattern yesterday at 35 yards using a Mossberg 835, Hevi Shot 13, 3.5 inch, 1.75 oz shot, Star Dot ported choke (.690).

The targetis a plain ol' 8X11.5 inch piece of copy paper. I count 40 hits in the head and neck. Too many to count that hit the paper. I was blown away by the performance of Hevi Shot compared to lead.

Campo - I'd go with the first pattern. It seems to have a good grouping on center, but a solid, even spray surrounding the kill zone, which will still kill even if you pull the shot. All told, any of those three patterns would work fine.

Don't be discouraged, because I can't get a #4 to pattern out of my gun with any choke I try. I get a better pattern with the 3" #4's over the 3.5" variety, but it's still not what I'd call "good."

I have both of those Mad Max Chokes, and I like them. I bought the hevi-shot one last year, but used it with regular high velocity loads. I killed a pretty nice bird at a pretty fair distance last year, so I guess it worked.

As we all know, shooting the blasted bird is the easy part. Finding a big one and getting him to stand still....at a reasonable distance....that's the hard part.