I just bought my first shotgun for home defense and took 5 choices of 12 gauge 00 Buck shot to the range and patterned two shots of each at 15 yards onto pieces of 18" x 24" paper with a 12" circle drawn in the center.  The gun used was a Remington 870 Express HD, 12 gauge, with about 300 rounds of birdshot through it.  This gun was purchased new in May 2011.



Shown below are the results, listed in order of my subjective interpretation of each load's recoil, from hardest recoiling to softest.



First, is the Remington 3" 15-pellet magnum load.  I bought this off the shelf at Academy with the thought of leaving a round of it in my shotgun's chamber, and using 2.75" shells in the magazine tube to maximize ammo.







Both shots registered 12 pellets on paper with wide spreads.  Three pellets missed the paper on each shot.  This load, with its wide spread, may not be terrible if you're not worried about collateral damage and you're more worried about aiming in the dark, but the recoil was so severe I felt like someone had let off an explosion and I was literally stunned.  I wont be using this ammo for home defense.  


The second load presented will be Sellier and Bellot 2.75" 12-pellet 00 Buck.  I ordered this from an internet retailer, and was interested to see if I could get three more pellets in each shot without a detrimental change in recoil.





The first round showed at least 7 pellets on paper, and the wad not far from a large hole made by an unknown number of pellets.  It's possible some pellets were still with the wad, or that many of them passed through the large hole.



The second shot showed 11 pellets on paper and no wad.  Both shots went high on the paper.  This shot isn't buffered, but I don't know what effect that may have had on making the pellets hit high.  Recoil was noticeably greater than on any of the 9-pellet loads I tested.


The third load, and thus the middle of the pack recoil-wise, was Remington 2.75" 9-pellet 00 Buck.  I bought this ammo off the shelf at Academy.





All 9 pellets hit paper, with 8 of them inside the 12" circle.



The second target shows 8 or 9 pellets on paper.  Only 2 landed outside the 12" circle.  The recoil of this load is very manageable and the pattern is tighter than the previously presented loads.


The fourth load is Federal Power Shok 2.75" 9-pellet, purchased at Academy.





Eight pellets landed inside the circle in a nice small area, and the ninth pellet impacted just outside the circle.



All 9 pellets hit inside the circle.  The spread appears about the same as on the first round.  This ammo had distinctly lower recoil than the Remington 2.75" 9-pellet, even thought they both advertise 1325 feet-per-second velocity.


The final load presented is Federal Reduced Recoil 2.75" 9-pellet with the Flight Control Wad.  I ordered this ammo from an internet retailer, and I've seen it recommended many times on Arfcom.





The first shot shows at least 8 pellets hitting paper in a small pattern.



The second shot shows all nine pellets and the wad impacting in a small tight pattern near the center of the circle.  The recoil on this load was magical.  It was equivalent to low-brass bulk birdshot: very manageable for quick followup shots.  Additionally, the patterns were the tightest of the five loads tested.  This ammo lived up to the hype, and it's what will be going into my shotgun for home defense.

The only way to find what your shotgun likes is to actually try a variety.  Your Remington and my Benellis both like Federal however.

Good test.

Hornady critical defense. that is all

Thank you for the test and posting results..

There is still some truth to what you posted however, I have yet to find a shotgun that did not like Flite Control.

Got this with my 18" Cyl. bore and Federal Premium 00 with FC wad.

Thanks for the information OP. I have socked back quite a bit of the Remington 9 pellet 00B and the Federal 00B w/ flite control wad. I also have a mountain of the Fiocchi 00B w/ nickel plated BBs. Now I need to see how it patterns

I've found that the Federal LE Tactical 00 Buck with the Flite Control Wad Works GREAT in every CYL bore shotgun I've put it through from a WWI Winchester M97 trench gun to Benelli M4. Anything other than a CYL choke and its just as good or bad as any other load. Posted about this a while ago and remember hearing that the load/wad was designed specifically for CYL bore shotguns. Best I've shot with it was with a 1926 vintage cut-down M97 Winchester, was consistently about seven inches at 25-yards. The pic below is from an ole Remington 870 Police with an 18-inch CYL barrel. There's four shots on one piece of paper with different colors of Sharpie around the holes from each shot, tough to see, but they're pretty tight groups.

That's what stays loaded up in my 590A1 for now.

Still haven't shot the Federal loads with the FC, but the Critical Defense does not disappoint one bit.

It's hard to switch from the FC wad once you've used it for a while. Definitely worth a try.

Can you elaborate on the details of the load or provide an item number?  I'd like to get some and test it.

ETA:  This?

I shot the Federal LE13200 last after shooting all the other loads, and it really felt amazing.  Birdshot recoil, and the tightest grouping, while still being 9-pellet 00 Buck.  It's especially important because my wife is 130 lbs with a collar bone on her right side that broke and never healed properly.  She's very recoil sensitive to the point that she can't fire a 10/22 more than a few hundred rounds in one sitting, so it's critical that she be able to handle the recoil long enough to empty the shotgun.

You mean the load uses BBs for buffering?  I'd like to see how that patterns.

Here's a link to a thread where I did a little test with the Hornady.
http://www.mossbergowners.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=926

Ive only ever seen 8 pellet 00 hornady critical defense. Im pretty sure its the same as their TAP line only different colored hulls. They just group really really well. Think of a pattern as big around as your fist from around 15yds.

Great post.  What choke where you using?  Looks like CYL patterns, with I/C or MOD you should some smaller groups at that distance.  This may reduce if not eliminate the fliers while still giving you decent coverage.

Cylinder.  Someone earlier said that Flight Control was made to be used in Cylinder chokes, so I'm not sure how a different choke would effect it.

I just ordered some TAP 8-pellet Low Recoil with the Versatite Wad, and some Winchester Ranger 9-pellet Low Recoil.  I'll do a shoot-off between those two and the Federal Low Recoil next week with more rounds of each and post the results.

What distances would you like to see?  I'll have 20 rounds of each, and the range I can do the testing on maxes out at about 20 yards.

The VersaTite and FliteControl wads are the same technology licensed from the inventor.  The wads are meant to be shot from Cyl/Imp Cyl bores.

Dropping down to a modified choke might make the pattern worse, and typically will do zero to make it better.

Both the Hornady and Federal loads should shoot about the same patterns, but I'd be willing to bet the Federal has significantly less recoil.  If they'd only load #1 buck in the FC wad...

I would say 10 yards, 15 yards, 20 yards, and 30 yards? Anything less than 10 isn't really worth patterning, and anything more than 30 is clinging to hope.

And I'd put 5 rounds at each distance, separate targets for clarity's sake, and then take the vertical and horizontal spread of each, and knowing myself, I'd probably make a graph.

I did a second round of testing with three variaties of reduced recoil buckshot:

Hornady TAP Reduced Recoil 2.75" 8-pellet 00 Buck with the Versatite Wad.  Item no. 86265.


Winchester Ranger Low Recoil 2.75" 9-pellet 00 Buck.


Federal Premium Reduced Recoil 2.75" 9-pellet 00 Buck with the Flight Control Wad.  This is the same ammo used in the first round of testing.


Shots were fired onto 18" x 24" newsprint paper with a 12" circle drawn in the middle.  Two rounds of each load were tested at 15 yards, and again at 20 yards.  The weapon used was the same as in the original testing: Remington 870 Express HD 12ga purchased in May 2011.

15 yard results:


Hornady TAP:

In 2/2 it LOOKS like 2 pellets hit low with the wad, but they turned out to just be scorch marks on the target.


Winchester Ranger:


Federal Premium:


20 yard results:


Hornady TAP:

That second shot held together in the cup!

Winchester Ranger:


Federal Premium:


Pretty much everything stayed on paper this time.  And even at 20 yards the patterns did a good job of holding together.  The Winchester Ranger ammo patterned wider than the Hornady or Federal at both ranges.  Recoil on the Winchester and Federal was indistinguishable.  I shot a mixed magazine of the two against some plate racks and couldn't tell a difference in recoil.  The recoil of the Hornady TAP was less than the other two, and in my opinion it was even less than the recoil of bulk #7.5 bird shot that I buy to practice with.

Since the Winchester patterned the widest, and didn't offer less recoil than the Federal, I would choose Federal over the Winchester.  The real decision becomes Federal vs Hornady: Federal gives you one more pellet, and Hornady gives the lightest recoil.  The prices of them were within a few cents per round of each other.  Also consider that Federal offers a reduced recoil 8-shot load which may be a better comparison to the Hornady that I tested.  I can't find any for sale without buying 50 rounds of it, so I don't plan to test it at this time.

Thanks for all the effort you put into this.  Well done!

I have had very good results with FED LE13200

20" Remington 870 Imp Cyl.  

50yds - average of 6 of 9 pellets hit IPSC plate
25yds - 9 pellets pie plate size
15yds - 9 pellets pop can size
5yds -  hole just a bit bigger then wad

For some reason it shoots better/tighter when dirty compared to my "flitz cleaned" barrel.