Low Recoil Tac-14 - Upland Hunting Load

[0faustus0]

Low Recoil Tac-14 - Upland Hunting Load

I am trying to develop a low recoil upland load for my Tac-14, 12ga.

For my first try I loaded 1 1/8oz of nickel plated #6 shot over 30.3 grains of Longshot and in a Flightcontrol wad. And with that load I got an acceptable pattern at 20 meters, however … recoil was still too stout.

So, I modified the load and I made two changes:

1.) I reduced the powder load to 23 grains of Longshot.
2.) And I added buffer to the shot (BPI Mix #47 Buffer)

Recoil was manageable ... but I got this result and worse … at 20 meters ....

Anybody have any idea of what happened there?
It seems part of the load turned into a slug and impacted the pattern ...

I am using these Flightcontrol wads:

 

[supernova]

That is an odd result. I'd retest without buffer to see if that had something to do with it.