My favorite defensive shotgun load is the Federal Flitecontrol buckshot. It produces the tightest pattern possible with a shotgun. In a home defense scenario, a tight pattern ensures your buckshot goes right where you want it to go without a random pellet possibly hurting a loved one. Outside of home defense, the round also offers a longer effective range for your buckshot load. I love Federal Flitecontrol, but it’s only ever been available for 12 gauge shotguns…until now.
20 Gauge Meet FliteControl
One of the releases that’s gone under the radar this SHOT Show is Federal bringing the Flitecontrol load to the 20 gauge. This is big news for shotgun fans. The 20 gauge offers plenty of power and lower recoil, but there aren’t very good options for purpose-built defensive ammo. Flitecontrol cures that. This new load from Federal promises to give us a 2.75-inch load of #2 buckshot. It houses ten pellets total, and the pellets are copper-plated.
Overall, it sounds like a fairly nice buckshot load. It’s interesting to use a #2 pellet, and I would love to see its performance through ballistic gelatin. I’m sure it can penetrate deep enough to stop the threat. Ten pellets isn’t a bad dose of bad guy repellant, either. With the defensive shotgun making a good comeback in the “tactical” world, it’s good to see the 20 gauge being taken seriously by the ammo market.
I’m a big advocate for the Flitecontrol wad and can’t wait to get some of this ammo in hand. It will be perfect with guns like the Mossberg 590 in 20 gauge that was released rather quietly in 2023. If the 20-gauge variant performs like the 12-gauge option, the rounds should easily function in a semi-auto with excellent reliability. As a shotgun nut, I’ll be hitting up Federal soon, and hopefully, we’ll have a review to see just how well it works.