My sexy M12 let me down

[Baltimore Ed]

Thought that I would ask this here in the sg forum instead of the WB forum. Last Saturday we did our semiannual WB match and several stages involved 8 sg knockdowns, 3 on the left and 5 on the right. Our sg targets are hinged on 3 ft stands and only fall straight back and are rather heavy duty. The angle on the far right target was rather oblique and I'm ashamed to say that it required multiple shots (5) to finally find the sweet spot and knock it down, to the laughter of my fellow shooters. If you can't be good be funny. It was a combination of my cut down bbl with no choke, my light loads and the unusual target angle. In my defense the targets in front of me were no problem at all. And shooters with any kind of choke had no problems. I plan on experimenting with my knockdowns using my loads vs factory field loads here in the yard and see what works but do you have any other suggestions? Here's a pix of our sg targets, pardon the poor image but you get the idea. By the way, the unofficial scoring after the match put me first even with my sg humor.

[Coffinmaker]

Hi Ed.

Couple of things.  Oblique targets can be hard to knock down when not properly calibrated.  Physics plays an important role with oblique targets as well.  Even when fair hit, Shot will bounce away.  Sherman gunners found out the hard way against Panther tanks.  SO:

Need to be prepared.  Have a smith put removable chokes in your M12.  Depending on the stage, you can switch chokes to give you the most "weight of shot" on the target.  It will mean, up close and personal, you'll have to aim a little more carefully.  One of my choke tubes for my '97 gives a pattern at 8 yards the size of a 50 cent piece (remember those things??).  Slams a popper down like Sony Liston (remember him??).  If I don't see hard to "kill" targets (DO NOT shoot first), Modified choke.  Field loads won't help if your pattern is 3 feet wide 

Your sexy M12 didn't really let you down.  You didn't finish it.

Coffinmaker