Winchester just released this new load, and as a major shotgun nerd, I decided to get my hands on it as soon as I could. I set my in-stock alerts, and Bud’s came up first. Before I knew it, I had 100 rounds of AutoBuck en route for the low, low price of about $3.99 per five-round box.
So What’s AutoBuck?
Winchester announced this new load and claimed it’s optimized for semi-auto shotguns. What makes a cartridge optimized for semi-auto shotguns? That’s not really clear, though I have to think the fact that AutoBuck is loaded with No. 1 shot rather than OO pellets has something to do with it. It’s not a high brass load. In fact, it’s not a brass rim at all. It’s Winchester’s alloy, the kind we typically find with less expensive loads. Some claim that buck loads are more finicky from a semi-auto than a pump or break action gun, but that hasn’t been my experience.
Then there’s the rated velocity of 1,325 feet per second. That pushes AutoBuck out of the reduced recoil realm. Sure, historically, semi-auto shotguns have needed a little extra oomph to function correctly. ‘Historically’ being the key word here. It’s not 1989, or 1999, or even 2009 anymore. Most modern, quality semi-auto shotguns function pretty well with reduced-recoil ammo.
My Mossberg 940, 930, 990, Benelli M4, A300, and Mafteah all function with reduced recoil Flitecontrol that’s moving 8 pellets of buckshot at 1,145 feet per second. Sure, if you’re using an older shotgun, this will work, but so will any other buckshot load moving at 1,325 feet per second.
What’s interesting is the fact that Winchester packed AutoBuck with twelve No. 1 buckshot pellets. They bill AutoBuck as being a good all-around choice for competition, hunting, or personal defense.
I like No. 1 buckshot. Sometimes when I’m alone at night, I hold an empty box of Flitecontrol No. 1 and mourn its discontinuation. No. 1 is about the smallest unplated pellet that can reach the proper depths necessary to reach something vital.
But is No. 1 optimized for semi-autos, then? Not particularly. Twelve No. 1 pellets weigh about 480 grains total. Nine pellets of 00 weigh about 484 grains. That’s not a huge difference. The benefit is that 12 pellets offers you twelve wound channels, three or four more than a typical 00 load.
That was interesting to me, and was what made me order the AutoBuck.
Inside AutoBuck
Cut one open and you see three stacks of four pellets, and that’s about it. The pellets aren’t plated, and they are probably hardened, but Winchester doesn’t say. I can’t imagine they aren’t at least hardened. There’s no buffer material like Grex.
Buffer material is typically very fine granular plastic material that’s packed into the shell. The main goal is better patterns by reducing deformation. Think of buffer like packing peanuts.
When the gunpowder ignites, the sudden, violent acceleration tends to crush the pellets against each other. That can cause them to deform and flatten. When that occurs, they fly through the air erratically.
Buffer material also reduces friction as the shot travels down the barrel, which can also deform the pellets. So buffer is a little addition that can make a big difference. Sadly, AutoBuck doesn’t have any.
The wad is nothing special. It’s pretty much the most basic one you can get. The Super-X wad would have been a decent choice, but alas, the goal here was to to keep the cost down.
AutoBuck At the Range
I brought out the Mafteah, the 990, the 940, and the Benelli M4 EXT to test these loads. They say it’s optimized for semi-autos, so let’s see if that’s true. The Mafteah is an inertia gun while the 990, 940, and M4 are all gas guns, but each operates a little differently.
First, let’s talk about patterns. That’s a make-or-break factor for any buckshot load. At seven yards with a cylinder bore choke, my pattern was seven inches wide.
With a cylinder bore at ten yards, that spread to about 12 inches. That’s more than an inch per yard and not impressive by any means.
The Benelli M4 has an improved cylinder bore choke and creates an eight-inch pattern at ten yards. Better, but far from remarkable. The AutoBuck didn’t impress in terms of patterns. The pellets tended to string a bit vertically.
As for recoil, it’s what you’d expect from any buckshot load at 1,325 feet per second. It’s not light, but mild is a pretty good descriptor. I tested the AutoBuck in the Mossberg 940 doing a two at ten drill. How fast can I land two rounds of buckshot on target at ten yards?
With the AutoBuck I can do it in .73 seconds on average between three attempts. I loaded up Fiocchi Defense Dynamics into the Mossberg 940 and tried the same drill and came out at .63 seconds on average.
What about reliability? I got four failures to feed in 100 rounds. Three in the 940 and one in the 990. I did the vast majority of my shooting through the 940. That’s not great. I don’t have those issues with the other buckshot loads in these guns, including cheap ammo.
What’s The Point of AutoBuck?
I don’t know. It’s not special when it comes to cycling in semi-autos. If your gun is finicky then this likely won’t run any better than a Monarch buckshot load. It’s cheap, but still costs more than Fiocchi Defense Dynamics, which is my cheap buckshot load of choice.
It’s certainly a buckshot load. I like the idea of 12 No. 1 pellets. I think a little buffer and a better wad would go a long way, but that would, of course, cost more. If Winchester wants to make an interesting No. 1 Buckshot, give us a 2.5-inch eight-pellet No. 1 round at about 1,250 feet per second with a decent wad and some buffer.
In the end, I don’t have a purpose for AutoBuck.