[m21sniper]

My understanding is that as soon as the shot leaves the barrel the pattern starts to immediately expand at an incremental rate. So it seems obvious to me that the shorter the barrel, the greater the spread at, say, 10 feet.

I DO agree that shotgun patterns are of a size at close range that aiming is still entirely required. At 7yds the pattern is only about the size of a grapefruit from a typical 12ga 18" bbl gun.

I do agree with RPK about that. I also agree that red dot/HUD/laser would all be very useful sighting aids in close-medium range combat, and especially for longer range shots.

I do not have enough skeet/trap shooting to offer an opinion, but the burris fastfire setup seems like it might work pretty awesome on a shotgun.