If you carry a shotgun in your squad or have one as a home defense gun you owe it to yourself to know how the weapon patterns its’ shot with your carry load. Here is a quick way using one target. Fire the load at five yards. Then with a marker, play “connect the dots” to show the outside diameter of the shot pattern. Using the same target and same aim point repeat the process at 10, 15, 20, and 25 yards.
When you are finished you will have a good idea of the spread of the shot at those ranges. When the pattern exceeds 20 inches you have passed the Average Effective Range (AER). This is the distance that load will strike with all its’ pellets on target based on the idea that the average male torso is around 20 inches wide.
Hopefully your department has done a good job of round selection. I have personally had a pattern of eight inches at 25 yards with Federal Tactical 8-Pellet 00 buck. That would make the AER around 50 yards.
