So your typical man-sized paper target would get a full spread up to about 15-20 yards or so with a well placed shot with 00 buck? More than that and you would start loosing pellets. What would be the spread in the same 14" cylinder barrel for bird shot?
Something I have always wondered is does shotgun barrel lengths make a difference for how much energy the pellets hit with at a certain distance? Is it purely how many pellets you hit with, or do you also loose energy faster because of the shorter barrel? For example, would a 14" barrel give less than a telling hit at say 40 yards than a 24" barrel just because you would lose pellets, or does the longer barrel also give the shot more velocity ? What would be considered a maximum useful range for a 14" shotgun cylinder barrel?
The inch width of pattern spread per yard of range is a generality, and pattern spread is different from gun to gun and load to load, but as a rule of thumb its as good as any other. The larger the pellets usually the tighter the gun patterns, but if one was to compare a skeet load to a 15 pellet 3" 00 load, it might not stand up. Your gun with ammo A might pattern a doughnut pattern at 15 yards, but with ammo B produces a dense pattern at 20 yards. Change your choke, and the reverse might occur.
The difference in velocity per inch change in barrel length is measurable, but not as extreme as say a high velocity small bore rifle; a comparison of the respective powder charges and bore volumes (bore capacity) provides the reason.
As pellets give up velocity, they loose their ability to penetrate. A pellet doesn't destroy tissue it can't reach. You can think of this in terms of energy, but a shotgun pellet's effectiveness isn't like that of a rifle bullet, the severity of the wound is determined by the number of pellets on target, the pattern spread, and their depth of penetration. When multiple pellets hit a live target, tissue is displaced and destroyed by multiple projectiles impacting and overlapping across a comparatively wide area, not by energy of an individual pellet. A palm sized wound from a shotgun blast settles matters quickly, but as pattern spread increases and penetration decreases, the effectiveness of the hit diminishes.
The maximum range of a 14" cylinder bore shotgun depends on the size of the target and the ammunition it's fed. To keep a full load of 00 pellets on a human silhouette, facing head on the maximum range is perhaps 10 yards, but should your target turn sideways, the range is effectively cut in half. Do all your pellets need to hit the target? Only circumstances dictate that. But if maximum range is defined by 80% patterns within a 30" circle, that's another matter entirely. You've got the gun, so pick up a variety of shells from various manufactures, and a stack of cardboard, and get out and see what happens when shooting at various ranges with each load from your particular gun. A close range, remember that the big hole is the wad.
