UNDERSTANDING THE TEST RESULTS
Richard Atkins has decades of experience testing guns, cartridges and accessories, and is our expert on all aspects of ballistics, shotgun performance and technical analysis
Velocity is measured at 2.5 metres from the muzzle.
W e are hearing much more about lighter loads at the moment. Considering all the hoo-ha that surrounded the original move from 32 gram to 28 gram shot loads, when a lot of shooters thought their scores would go down, the desire to go to 24 gram loads for clays seems to be growing by itself.
Pressure is the mean breech figure in Bar (as per CIP).
Pondering the reasons for increasing interest in 24 gram loads I suspect there are three main aspects: First is the potential cost saving (although some premium 24 gram loads will cost more than some budget priced 28 gram cartridges). Another obvious one is lower recoil; providing the 24 gram loads are not ultra high velocity this is easy to detect for yourself and a very desirable feature of lighter loads.
SD is Standard Deviation (consistency).
The key factor then becomes effectiveness: just how well can a 24 gram load compare against a 28 gram load?