You know what goes together like milk and cookies? Mini shotguns and mini shot shells. For some time Aguila ruled the market with these mini shells and I can’t help but think that the release of technically not shotguns like the Remington Tac 14 and the Mossberg Shockwave greatly improved the sales of these shells. The Opsol Mini Clip in a Mossberg Shockwave gives you outstanding reliability with these mini shells and a 9 round capacity isn’t bad. Now in the land of Capitalism and sunshine we are going to see competitors rise. Once such competitor is Exotic Products and their new Mixed Buck is one of many new flavors of Minishells.
The New Minishell on the Block
What exactly is mix buck? Well, today its a mixture of both Number 4 and Number 1 buckshot in one little shell. These shells are the same size as the Aguila minishells and come in at only 1 3/4 inches. This means they work perfectly with the Mossberg Shockwave and the Opsol mini clip. That 1 3/4 inches packs a total of 7 Number 4 buckshot pellets and 4 number 1 buckshot pellets.
Is there any benefit to mixing different kinds of buckshot? There isn’t any that I’m aware off, but why not? The biggest advantage I see is giving the end user a total of 11 pellets of buckshot in a teeny tiny shotgun shell. That’s the cool thing about shotguns, you can mix and match your formula to your heart’s content. The Exotic Products Minishells have a reported speed of 1,365 feet per second.
Minishells On the Range
Thanks to SHOT Show I have a number of targets just waiting to have holes punched in them, so I went ahead and patterned this load at 10 yards. What is interesting is the pattern tended to be more vertical than round or horizontal. This is interesting, and I’m not sure why it lands this way. If you want to stitch a target from neck to nuts this load will do it. The recoil was minimal, and like most minishells its a pleasant and fun round to shoot. They cycled smoothly, and they worked perfectly with both the Mossberg Shockwave and the Rem Tac 14.
Exotic Products produces several different loads in the minishell variety. Most are interesting. This includes the following:
Buck and No 4 Shot
4 Buck
3 Buck
00 Buck
1 Buck
7 1/2 Shot
Jungle Juice – 00 Buck and 7 1/2 shot (Rhodesian Load)
Jungle Juice Jr – 000 Buck and 7 1/2 shot
Slugs – 1 Ounce Lead Slug
Exotic Products is certainly opening the doors and is willing to experiment with different loads for their minishells. The biggest downside is going to be the price. The cheapest I could find was 10 bucks for 5 shots. Aguila is still a bit cheaper, but competition breeds innovation.
