How much difference do Cartridges make?

I’d love to find some data on this…

Based on ‘class’ (cpsa, not social) how much difference (other than confidence) ACTUALLY make according to non sponsored shooters?

Is it 2% or 15%

Let’s suggest 100 bird reg sporting in good conditions

AAA
AA
A
B
C

I'm a massive believer that with modern cartridges and target setting these days there isn't a bad cartridge out there. They will all do the job that their payload and shot size dictate. So for me 0%

I'm A class, just come back down from a couple of periods in AA and my best ever result when I got high gun and county champion was shot with gamebore velocity plus and 1/4 and 1/4 choke.

Somebody, possibly ‘Clayshooting’ magazine, ran a 100 bird comp at Wylie Valley a while back and everybody had to shoot 21 gram Comp X shells. If I remember right, the scores were pretty close to normal. Some of the top guys were shocked and a bit confused afterwards…..

I’m a very average shot and use 21 gram most of the time (to minimise recoil). Last week I had a lesson with a good coach and got told to upgrade to 24 gram loads. Whether I will be able to see a change as a result of the extra shot will be interesting.

It's 99% marketing in my opinion. If you dissect cartridges you see the same components used over and over again through all price ranges.

The only real discernable difference is shot hardness. Harder shot does produce tighter, more centre dense patterns but is that necessarily a good thing?

I've won a few competitions with Gamebore White Gold but I have consistently shot a higher average with Fiocchi TTones and Gamebore Velocitys.

As for shot quality, I've seen some of the most shoddy mis-shaped shot in high end shells and perfect spherical stuff in budget loads so price is no guarantee of quality.

PM.

Makes you wonder when 24g pro 1 are 20% more expensive than 24g Superfast… Even if they rattle the dentures less !

I would say at the top end possibly 1% but for most not an issue apart from confidence

I don´t recognize much difference between the major brands. Some may be a bit harder to shoot than the others,
but that´s it.
I don´t know how many brands use the same components. Some brands show "made in Spain", "made in Italy", "made in EU"
from Lot to Lot.

When you go round the various grounds and watch people miss it’s not because they have the wrong cartridge it’s because they are pointing the gun in the wrong place!

Similar to Jonny although I'm pretty sure I'll be making the downward part of the journey next time .

I mostly use 1/4 and 1/2, selecting 1/2 for longer targets. I do believe that ammo choice makes a difference, but only on longer targets. I am amazed at what can be broken consistently with the right choke/ammo combination, my theory being that an even pattern is vital for longer targets. I stick to ammo that I have had good results with and that gives me the all important confidence to believe that I can do the job.

Shooting a rifle, there's a very obvious difference between cheap bullets and the better quality. Cheaper are noticeably less accurate. It comes from variation in powder loads and variation in uniformity of the lead. I would expect the same to apply to shotgun cartridges. Inconsistent powder loads and irregular shaped pellets will affect the flight of the lead. So I would expect cheap cartridges to give a variation in pattern.
That said, I miss because I'm not pointing in the right place

Nickredhill said:

Shooting a rifle, there's a very obvious difference between cheap bullets and the better quality. Cheaper are noticeably less accurate. It comes from variation in powder loads and variation in uniformity of the lead. I would expect the same to apply to shotgun cartridges. Inconsistent powder loads and irregular shaped pellets will affect the flight of the lead. So I would expect cheap cartridges to give a variation in pattern.
That said, I miss because I'm not pointing in the right place

Click to expand...

However there are very few lead shot manufactures and the manufacturing process is such that all shot is made either by tower dropping or the Bliemeister short drop method. Both process remove irregular shaped shot not to sell on to the cartridge manufacture but to be melted again, put back into the process again.

As for variation in powder load, modern machines are very accurate and very fast, a carton of 25 every few seconds, the same machine will make budget and competition cartridges.

Competition cartridges normally have harder shot, or copper or nickel washed shot.

What makes a cartridge is the bringing together of the powder type (and there are lots, single or double based) , wad type (lots again) and shot type to deliver the expectations of the shooter.

I have been selling shotgun components for home loading for eighteen plus years buying from the same manufactures as the commercial cartridge manufactures do.
The components have been around for decades, yes powder has improved but really the rate of change has been slow, if it ain’t broken don’t fix it.

However not so now with the race for biodegradable wads to use with non toxic shot, like steel shot and the risk of a total ban on lead in ammunition.

A shotgun is a scatter gun, no two patterns will ever be the same

The only thing I would add to the above is that I sometime use a bior (type) 9 or fibre 24g (Express Superlights are ideal) for close stuff. That's only because they open up quicker. I agree that distance stuff needs something different but for general stuff I can't see any objective difference - there's loads subjectively and I would avoid changing.

Could discuss the content of the video for hours, cartridge manufacture generally do not buy primers they buy primed cases and primers are again generally sealed to the environment, ask any home reloader who will buy just the primers to reuse the fired case.
The industry is huge, many millions of cartridges are made every day/week. Poor quality components would have no place in the industry as cartridge manufacturers would soon drop them rather than risk their reputation.
As it was put to me once by a leading U.K. manufacturer, you are only as good as your last cartridge shot.
Yes occasionally defects happen but these are normally during the manufacture of the cartridge when all the components are assembled and typically due to poor setting of the loading machine which set correctly will halt production on a faulty cartridge, be that inaccurate powder or shot does, missing wad, missing primer, poor crimp etc.
To compete in a very competitive market manufacturers invest a lot of money in the manufacturing to produce cartridges at the rate of a carton of 25 every few second.
Today’s production line, makes the cartridge, prints the cartridge and inserts them into the 25 carton with no human intervention.
We may moan about the price of the cartridges but they are a manufacturing marvel of modern production.

https://www.bsn.it/machine/