Saturday, December 18, 2010  Rio reduced recoil buckshot
loads.... lets take a look  An e-mail arrived from the folks at,
and it asked if they might have anything I'd like to write about
here on Carteach0. Looking over their inventory, I noticed the
reduced recoil 12 gauge buckshot ammunition. Having never tried
it myself, the obvious answer came to mind.  Not long after, a
box showed up on my doorstep. Printed on the side, the wonderful
ORM-D signal of fun ahead!  The good folks at sent along not
only the reduced recoil Rio loads, but also some Sellier &
Bellot standard buck, and some S&B 3" magnum buckshot as well.
The three loads nicely stack into a good comparison of reduced
recoil loads vs. standard, and the 3" magnum shells add a
'spice' to the mix.  Despite being a reduced recoil load, the
Rio was the only high based shell of the samples. Having ripped
the bases off shotgun shells on extraction before, I heartily
approve of high based shells for defensive loads. There is no
such thing as 'works too wel