I have been patterning or attempting to pattern my shotgun and I have currently used both the Federal blue box 3" 4 buck with 41 pellets (standard led non plated), Federal red box 3" 4 buck with 41 pellets (copper plated lead) both are buffered and have a wad, 3" Remington Express 41 pellets ( buffered lead no wad).). I have shot these out of a full choke and the Carlson coyote choke and have very irregular results. I am using a Remington 870 with a 26" barrel. At 20 yards all shells pattern about the same with both chokes. All pellets are in a 10"x 10" square but when I get out to 40 yards the shot will string vertically or horizontally with both chokes and all loads. I still get vital hits on a coyote size silhouette but those patterns do not seem uniform. Not a circle pattern like 20 yards. Not I am new to the shotgun world and this is my 2nd year coyote hunting and now my shotgun is my go to weapon because I normally hunt where the farthest shot will be 50 yards generally no farther than 40 yards but is this normal? I have read countless forums and threads where people will say they have 60%-75% of pellets hitting a pie plate at 40 yards but I have yet to get that. Do you think going down to 2 3/4 will help that out? Looking from a physics stand point it seems like a 2 3/4 load would pattern better than 3" because you are forcing less shot in a smaller area thus less deforming of shot but I don't want to spend more money than I already have on this. I just want y'alls opinion before I go out spending more money and more time. Has anyone ever tried patterning buckshot? If so what are y'alls results? Just trying to find a combo that will be uniform so I can get clean kills on coyotes. The last thing I want to do is cripple an animal.