So, I made it to the range, and I have to say, I'm not impressed.
Below is my target from 25 yards. I was shooting a 14" Mossberg franken835. The load was 2.75" 12 gauge flightcontrol, 9 pellet.
Only 7 pellets on an 8x11" sheet of paper. For context, this gun has an optic on it that was sighted in and routinely smashed 10 ring at 25 yards with slugs.
My POA is center target.
While the targets seem consistent, they are consistently disappointing. When I changed up to a 20" 590A1 and an 18" 870 Wingmaster, the pellets at least stayed on the target, but the darn flyer was always present (and 5-8" away from the pellet grouping).

Frustrated, I tried some old (like, 20 year old or more) Winchester Silver Box 9 pellet High Brass I had brought with me. The grouping was best out of all the flightcontrol 9 pellet, but as you can see, one pellet didn't print and two are flyers from the very tight group. I might cut a shell open, but I don't believe these have any of the plastic medium in between the shot, and I know for a fact that it doesn't have the venerated flight control wad/ shot cup. This was shot with the 870.
Am I nuts, or should I be expecting more out of 00 Buckshot at 25 yards? If we consider the red ring the shot at vitals, I'm only averaging 2 or 4 pellets out of 9!?