Reload!

OCTOBER 2002 NEWSLETTER

© Bruce Buck, editor

SMALL GAUGE CHAMPIONSHIPS

Fairfield Fish & Game, Monroe, CT

September 15, 2002

Thought the sky was dark and it was humid enough to make my old watch
fog, the torrential rains predicted respectfully refrained until the
ravenous Travelers horde had been fed and watered and the awards
ceremony had been completed. The Travelers know whose side Mutha N is
on.

In all it was a glorious day for the 130 subgauge hopefuls. We had 65
20 gauge shooters, 55 with the 28, 11 410 masochists and 4 practicing
with the 12. Our handicaps have been in place for over half a dozen
years now. These handicaps obtain at each and every Travelers shoot,
so you don’t have to trot the idiot stick out for just this one event.
The official Travelers handicaps, now widely copied elsewhere in the
sporting world, are: 12=0, 16=3, 20= 5, 28=10, 410=20. Pump or SxS
gets an additional 5 over and above because they deserve it.

The Fairfield course, product of the unceasing efforts of John Guay,
John Lawlor, Al Anglace and the rest of the Fairfield’s tireless
volunteer sporting clays committee, was absolutely perfect. Fairfield
is a woods course utilizing modest cleared areas. Woods always
introduce visibility issues, but that’s just part of the game. You are
usually best off with very pale yellow or gold glasses, especially in
overcast, grey woods situations like this shoot. If you wore dark
green glasses, you should have painted your gun white with a red
muzzle and tapped it on the ground.

I felt that the course was about 5 yards shorter on average than most
of the Travelers man-eating layouts. Though one or two shots were near
the edge of 410 range, generally things were very much within range
and clearly visible. Of course, this made you feel worse when the bird
tricked you and you missed.

We had 14 stations, most using two machines. As the sign of
sophisticated design, there was no repetitive style to the targets.
The stations were surprisingly different, a very difficult achievement
on the close confines of a woods course.

A good bit of the variety was due to the Travelers’ custom of mixing
report and true pairs at the same station. This often forces the
shooter to reverse his target order or timing and adds a level of
complexity. A mixed sequence like this reinforces the need for each
shooter to loudly announce “New Shooter!” when he steps into the box.
This warns the trapper to begin the target sequence anew.

The best target on the course was the report bird on #1. After a
straightforward quartering-away bird from a platform at 5 o’clock to
12 o’clock you looked up high into the sky to see a monster looping
slider coming in at you like a snowboarder schussing an Alp. The bird
started out of view to the left, crossed the stratosphere, touched the
moon waaaay high in front and then started to sideslip hooking back
towards the shooter at an ever-increasing speed. It sliced earthward
like a frisbee gone mad. If we had any wind, it wouldn’t have worked,
but we didn’t so it did. Whaddabird!

The second bird on #3 was also problematic for many. It was a hot
quartering away 7 to 12 going slightly uphill. The speed was perfectly
set so that it was a bit too fast to conveniently take early. If taken
late, the bird had begun to fall as it ran out of speed. Being thrown
just a bit uphill, this falling was not at all obvious. Many shot over
the top. You could tell you were over the top, but the bird had been
going to fast that you had built up gunspeed and couldn’t easily lower
the barrel. Clever. Nasty. Just perfect. The most successful shooters
took it early. Dawdle and die.

#4 had criss-cross simo quartering away birds that were thrown across
a hillside so that the left bird crossed uphill and the right bird
crossed down hill. If your first move wasn’t perfect, you were likely
to miss them both. There was no opportunity to correct. This was
probably the only station where the longer bird really stretched the
ability of the 410. But that’s why the 410 gets the big handicap.

In all it was a superlative course, probably the best one we’ve ever
had for subgauge. It had just the right mixture of difficulty tempered
with possibility. The comments from the shooters were universally
complimentary.

Thescores were high compared to the usual monthly winning score in the
mid 80s. This was clearly in deference to making everything hittable
with the 410.

The poplar guns were the 20 gauge Beretta 391 auto, the 20 and 28
gauge Beretta O/Us and the 20 and 28 gauge Browning 425s. Many of the
O/Us had 30” barrels. There were a few tube sets, but not many. Pumps
far outnumbered SxSs.

Trophies were gorgeous engraved silver plates. Lou Cabassa and Kevin
Kruleski shot it off for a HOA plate the size of a manhole cover. A
happy Donna Galotto won the raffled Franchi 28 gauge automagic. Well
deserved.

HOA Lou Cabassa 98 28
20 Ga Kevin Kruleski 98 20
28 Ga Godfrey Shelton 97 28 pump
410 Ted Knapp 97 410
I-1 Jean duLau 96 20
I-2 Vin LaScalza 96 20
I-3 Lavert Cypher 95 28 pump
II-1 Jeremy Willinger 94 28
II-2 Dean Anglace 94 410 pump
II-3 Bob Busha 92 28 pump
III-1 Mike Steiner 89 20
III-2 Alex Kale 86 28
III-3 Joe Lachick 85 28
IV-1 Don Talias 85 20
IV-2 Bob Beck 85 28
IV-3 Barry Corwin 85 28
V-1 Dave Moehrke 85 28
V-2 Joe Cimino 82 28
V-3 Bob Blake 78 20
VI-1 Mark Hariton 55 20
VI-2 Debbie Christensen 48 20
VI-3 Anthony Batttaglia 45 20
Msdm Fran Gallogly 76 20
Ldy-1 Ginny Tennison 81 28
Ldy-2 Cyndi Dalena 77 28
Ldy-3 Olive Lawlor 76 20
S Vet John Levy 85 28
Vet-1 George Ostrander 95 28
Vet-2 Ed Moritt 92 28
Vet-3 Zaid Siddig 89 20
Jr-1 Eli Hariton 66 28
Jr-2 Jeff Cornwell 52 20
Jr-3 Trevor Moehrke 51 20
Jr-4 Like Sproviero 32 20
Guest Brian Griffin 87 28
Jr Gst Kendall Coon 73 28


THE PATTERN OF THE TECHNOID...

"Lessee now. Twinkies, Thermos of coffee, slide rule, pocket
protector, red resin flooring paper, Magic Marker, tape measure, back
up slide rule, reserve Twinkies, staple gun, staple gun ammo, shotgun,
emergency Twinkies, choke assortment, shoot kit, six different boxes
of 3 dram #7´ shells. That ought to do it." said the Technoid to his
accomplice Norbert Nimrod.

"Watchaduin, T-meister?" said Norbert. It seemed impossible to the
Technoid that even the dense Norbert, to whom "duh" was a two-syllable
word, could not see that he was clearly going patterning. Why else
would anyone voluntarily tote around a 36" wide roll of red resin
flooring paper (available at your local lumber yard for under $10 for
a big roll)? Well, other than the obvious, why would anyone?

"What is the point of patterning?" said Norbert. "You either hit 'em
or miss 'em. A few pellets more here or there won't matter."

"Listen up, my serene dumbnitude. When I miss, I don't miss by much",
tootled the Technoid, not entirely believing what he just said. He
sometimes missed by a lot. "I have the opportunity to buy a quantity
of low cost target loads at a really good price and I want to find out
if they are any good. I also want to see if the Briley aftermarket
extended chokes are any better than my Beretta factory ones.”

The 36" wide resin paper was duly cut and stapled to a wood frame at
the local range. A small black aiming point was drawn in the center of
the paper, but no 30" circle was drawn around it. That would come
later after the shot was taken. For now it was just the aiming point.
40 yards were tape measured off to where the Technoid would put the
muzzle of the gun. Load. Lock. Fire. Change paper. Repeat. Change
shells and chokes. Repeat. Ad nauseam. Many times. Too many times.
Even more times than that. When the Twinkies and coffee ran out, the
session was over. The pattern sheets lay curled up on the ground like
so many papyrus scrolls in some Egyptian's library.

Back in the Technoid's basement enclave at the towering RELOAD!
complex in a quaint little Connecticut seaport town, the Technoid laid
the first of many sheets of perforated pattern paper on his table. The
heavy resin flooring paper was laid back side up so that the pellet
holes seemed more like little volcanoes sticking up. They were much
easier to count that way.

A wooden yardstick/compass was produced with holes drilled at zero,
10", 13.5" and 15". The center of the pattern was eyeball guesstimated
(not using the aiming marker on the front side of the paper) and the
20", 27" and 30" circles were drawn. A 20" circle was selected because
Warren Johnson's Choke Chooser indicates that the best killing pattern
you can hope for with 1 1/8 oz of #7´s on a slightly turned target at
40 yards is 18". Warren's pattern and choke analyzing slide card gizmo
(under $15, call 800-332-0642) is an absolutely indispensable analysis
tool for any aspiring Junior Technoid. It even comes in its own
plastic pocket protector. 30" was selected as the standard pattern
reference (Full choke- the one being tested here- should put at least
70% of its shot load into a 30" circle at 40 yards). The hole for the
27" circle was left over from a previous patterning expedition
involving a more open choke. The patterning circle diameter would be
changed when other choke/shell/distance combinations were analyzed.
The variations were endless. (As this is being written, an even more
excruciatingly detailed method of patterning is being considered.)

Pellet strikes were duly counted and each pellet hole was "tapped"
with the Magic Marker. (Note: do NOT do this on your 18th century
rosewood dining room table unless you feel a pressing need to have it
refinished while you go out looking for a new wife.) Resultant load,
choke, distance and pellet counts were duly scribed in one of the
Technoid's vasty tomes.

Norbert watched all this in relative silence. "T-man, that was a lot
of work. Will you learn anything of real value." The Technoid was well
aware that Norbert saw his constant tinkering as a total waste of
time.

"Yes, indeedy, my semi-sagacious cerebral slug. Analyzing patterns is
even more fun than watching reruns of Beavis and Butthead. Any Junior
Technoid worth his genuine plastic hand painted pocket protector
revels in it. It can also turn up some interesting stuff. This is the
time of year that you want to set up your reloads and select your
factory shells for the coming season. Factory screw chokes often do
not deliver what they claim to. Patterning is the only way to know
what you really have."

In an effort to shift expenditures from the reloading budget to the
Twinkie budget, the Technoid had purchased some Peruvian "Magnum" shot
for reloading instead of his usual domestic Lawrence Magnum brand.
"Magnum" is the shot industry's code word for higher antimony content.
Antimony is the hardening agent used in lead shot. Harder pellets
deform less when they are shot and so produce better patterns. More
antimony is good.

The problem is that antimony costs about five times what lead does, so
the manufacturers have an incentive to cut costs and use as little as
they feel they can get away with. "Magnum" label or not, they never
want to tell you how much antimony they put in. Your ignorance is
their bliss. Percentage of antimonial content is the McDonald's Secret
Sauce of the reloading world. The bottom line is that more antimony
(up to about a high of 6% for target shot) means harder pellets and
that translates directly into better patterns. Do you doubt? Read on.
The Full choke pattern results (product of the Technoid's inelegant
Beretta 30" 303 gas gun) of around five patterns per shell were:
Remington 3 dram Premier STS #7-1/2s printed an average of 177 pellets
into the center 20" of the pattern. The Peruvian Magnum #7-1/2 reloads
at the same velocity averaged only 145. That is a big difference.
Perhaps "magnum" is really the Spanish word for "soft".

The Remington Gun Club lower cost factory target loads were even worse
than the Peruvian reloads at an average pellet count of 141. Remington
knows exactly how much antimony costs too. They put it in their
expensive shells, not in their cheap ones. Sometimes you actually do
get what you pay for. A few of the popular Victory 480 1 1/8 oz #7-1/2
whites were also tested for comparison's sake and they came in just
about the equal of the Remington STS Premier shells, but a few more
will have to be shot to confirm the results. The Technoid felt that
his tests, though incomplete, had produced two winners and two losers
and he adjusted his ammunition requirements (and the Twinkie budget)
accordingly.

Choke analysis was not as clear cut. Statistically speaking (Is there
any other way?), there was no meaningful difference in the patterns
produced by the Briley 2X (extended Full choke and the Beretta
factory flush mount Full choke. Both miked .035" so it was a
legitimate "apples to apples" comparison. Both performed about the
same during the tests. Norbert thought that the Briley chokes looked
cooler though, they way that they stuck out of the muzzle and all.
Like blue jays and crows, Norbert was attracted to shiny objects.

Just as the final rite of a roast chicken dinner is to put the carcass
in the soup pot, the Technoid's last use of a patterning sheet is to
check the point of impact. He pushed a pencil through the paper where
he had marked the center of the pattern when he drew the circles. He
turned the paper over and Norbert saw that the pencil hole was not
directly through the piece of tape put on the front as an aiming mark.
It was about two inches to the left on just about every piece of
pattern paper. The Technoid's gun was shooting two inches left at 40
yards.

Norbert thought that was plenty good enough and was surprised when the
Technoid loosened the stock on his semi-auto and inserted a very thin
brass shim between the stock and the receiver on the left side. This
gave the gun a microscopic bit of extra cast off and was intended to
move the point of impact to the right by the desired two inches.
Further testing would verify this.


Two inches at 40 yards did not seem like a great deal, but a full
choke's reliable killing area for an edge-on target at that distance
is only about 12" wide according to Choke Chooser. 2" is a meaningful
part of 12" if you look at it that way. Had the Technoid found that
his O/U, instead of his gas gun, was shooting a bit to the left, he
would have either had to get the stock bent or he could have simply
wet sanded the left side of the stock using 400 grit moistened with
his tears as he destroyed the classic oil finish.

By this time Norbert's eyes had glazed over. He had just heard more
about patterning than he had ever wanted to. He thought that it would
be a lot easier to just find out what gun, chokes and shells the big
guys used and copy that. It would sure save a lot of work. Norbert
knew that we was not as smart as the Technoid, but he was not stupid
either. No, not by a long shot. Or a short one, for that matter.

PHOTODEGRADABLE WADS…

As mentioned here last month, Tamarack Preserve in Millbrook, NY will
require degradable wads for their shooting starting January 1, 2003.
The Travelers will shoot there next spring and many Travelers shoot
there occasionally anyway, so we have to think ahead. The club carries
factory fiber wad shells available for purchase, but there is also an
interesting option for reloaders.

Thanks to help from readers, we’ve tracked down some photodegradable
wads suitable for reloading. These wads are designed to self-destruct
with the aid of sunlight and should get the job done without
retrogressing to fiber wads, which can affect patterns and barrel
leading. We haven’t tested these yet, but they might be ideal for
Tamarack.

The photodegradable wads are the Gualandi 12 gauge #GUWH22 suitable
for one and 1-1/8 oz loads. They cost $4.50 for 200, $19.90/1000 and
$99.75/5000. This is slightly less than twice the price of
conventional discount wads. They are available from Precision
Reloading, Stafford Springs, CT, tel: 800-970-4555,
<www.precisionreloading.com>. Precision is also bringing in fiber wads
for those who would like to reload them.

You can get loaded factory target shells with photodegradable plastic
wads too. Contact B&P, tel: 972-726-9073, www.bandpamerica.com. They
cost $108/500 and can be mailed to your door.

CONGRATULATIONS ANDY DUFFY

Andy just won the 2002 NSCA sporting clays national championship.
That’s his third NSCA national title. It must be due to all those
Travelers Tough targets he practices on when he shoots with us. Way to
go Andy!

-


*** 2002 CONNECTICUT TRAVELERS SHOOT SCHEDULE ***

OCT 5~7 FALL TRIP
OCT 20 MILLBROOK ROD & GUN, NY- OKTOBERSCHUTZENFEST
NOV 17 EAST MOUNTAIN, NY-CLUB CHAMPIONSHIPS
DEC 1 EAST MOUNTAIN, NY-KOEHLER SOC. FUNDRAISER THREE SHOT
DEC 15 MID-COUNTY, NY-DICK LOSEE MEMORIAL CHRISTMAS PARTY


*** OTHER SHOOTS OF INTEREST ***
ALWAYS, ALWAYS, CALL AHEAD TO CONFIRM

SEP 29 NEWGATE COON CLUB, CT (860-738-3619) SHOOT AND PIG ROAST
OCT 6 NEWGATE COON CLUB, CT (860-738-3619) AMERICAN LEGION SHOOT
OCT 11~13 PECONIC RIVER CLUB, NY (631-727-5248) SHOOT FOR A CURE
Breast cancer takes so many of our precious mothers, wives and daughters. There is good progress towards early detection and a cure thanks to funding efforts like Peconic River’s October 11~13 Shoot for a Cure fund raiser. It’s a great shoot for a good cause. Do the right thing.
OCT 27 WALLINGFORD R&G, CT (203-265-1012) 50 BIRD FUN SHOOT
NOV 3 NEWGATE COON CLUB, CT (860-738-3619) THREE SHOT CH
DEC 1 NEWGATE COON CLUB, CT (860-738-3619) CHRISTMAS SHOOT
DEC 8 WALLINGFORD R&G, CT (203-265-1012) 50 BIRD FUN SHOOT


CONTACTING THE TRAVELERS...

CTSCA Home Office: Email <CTSCA@email.com> (by far the best way) or
telephone 860-354-9351 if you absolutely must.

Membership, Address Changes and Shooting Class status: Contact Cyndi
Dalena at 860-582-3142 between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM. Leave message.
Or Email shotguncyndi@prodigy.net

Guide Book questions, contact Dick Orenstein at <rho@usa.com> or call
203-454-4724.

To place an ad, post a shoot date in Reload! or simply heap abuse on
the editor, contact Bruce Buck at tel: 203-454-1080 (worst way), fax
to 707-215-0668 (adequate way) or email <bcb23@columbia.edu>
(marvelous way, you clever Traveler you!).

The current and previous issues of Reload! are posted on the internet
at <www.ShotgunReport.com>. You will also find megs and megs of other
useless Technoidal drivel there. Great literature never dies. It just
sort of lurks around.





**** THE UPCOMING TRAVELERS MONTHLY SHOOT ****

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2002
OKTOBERSCHUTZENFEST
MILLBROOK ROD AND GUN CLUB
MILLBROOK, NY


This year’s Connecticut Travelers’ Oktoberschutzenfest is going to
have even more Gemütlichkeit than ever. We’ll have barrels of fun.
While our Münchenbewohner German cousins enjoy their barrels of foamy
fun, we will derive equal pleasure from barrels of a different sort.

It’s all the usual drill(ing). Show up at 9:00 AM and check in at
regristration to see where you are squadded. Enjoy some high test
kaffe und strudel while you cinch up your lederhausen and get your
bockdoppelflinte ready to shoot. The tab for the day is US$55 and
your paid reservations must be in our hands no later than Thursday,
October 17 or you will be kaput. Subgauge guns get the usual
handicaps. Remember, the popular German 16 gauge gets three birds.
Drillings get an extra handicap if you use the rifle barrel on the
longer shots.

Millbrook has a great course, somewhat in the style of Fairfield. A
“woodsy” course is absolutely appropriate for fall with its helles
Oktoberlaub (bright October foliage). Gäste sind willkommen. (Guests
are welcome.)

Directions to Millbrook Rod and Gun Club, Millbrook, NY:

From Taconic parkway, take the NY Rte 44 (Millbrook) exit. Take Rte 44
heading East for about 1.6 miles to Rte 44-A. Bear Left onto Rte 44-A.
Go 2.1 miles (you will pass Sandanona’s driveway) to Stamford Road on
the left immediately after the bridge. Turn Left on Stamford Road and
go 1.5 miles to Woodstock Road. Turn Left on Woodstock Road and go .8
miles to Millbrook R&G Club sign on right.

If lost, strayed or stolen, the Millbrook R&G Club telephone number is
914-677-0029.

REMEMBER, EYE PROTECTION IS MANDATORY AT ALL TRAVELERS SHOOTS.