doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com CHOKE ?

Short barrels don't always mean open chokes.

A Shooting Man's Creed by Sir Joseph Nickerson, published in the UK in 1989 by Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd

"If only birds are included and a comparison is made between Lord Ripon's last twenty-four seasons and my last twenty-four..... then my total turns out to be slightly greater. Documentary records show that from 1899 to 1922 Lord Ripon shot 187, 763 head of birds, an annual average of 7,823. From 1966 to 1988 I accounted for 188,172, an annual average of 7,841. For the last three seasons I used nothing but 28 bores and for the fourteen previous seasons before those, only 20 bores (all made by Purdeys), while the Marquis always used 12 bores, as far as I know.

The Purdey 20 bores weigh six pounds and, though they can discharge an ounce of shot with no problem, thirteen sixteenths of an ounce is quite adequate. The retractable trigger fires the top barrel. On one gun I have this barrel very heavily choked for grouse so that I can get a chance at the first bird a fair way in front and have a bit more spread of shot for the second barrel when I take the nearer bird.

The more accurate the shot (his way of saying shooter) the more he can use choke to advantage. Most people are better off with very little choke, but a choked spare pair of barrels is very useful for specialized use on shoots with extra-high birds".

His ideas of choking agree with mine. Yesterday I was using a 20 with the first barrel choked LM and the second IC. I took two sets of doubles out of 14 birds by taking the first bird farther out with the LM barrel and the second bird closer in with the IC.

SRH

JoeZ, you are right. But the short barreled ones are the guns i wish the open choke guys would fiddle with.

I understand.

I didn't mean to imply that I ride birds. I don't. I simply use the first 2-5 seconds of any flushing opportunity on a pheasant to acquire the bird with my eyes, adjust my feet if necessary, and sometimes wait patiently a second or two until it provides a sporting shot clearly beyond 20 yards...then I strike like a rattlesnake.

I agree that riding any moving target is a good way for the typical shooter to miss targets. But only because it's a skill that isn't practiced enough to avoid the inherent pitfalls.

I do shoot grouse and the occasional woodcock as close as 20yds but, frankly, it's some of the most boring shooting I do. I seek out ruffed grouse cover that often offers opportunities for 30-40 yd shots and I refrain from shooting gamebirds at a distance that's likely to render them inedible. I haven't found that particularly hard to do since I turned 40 or so. For jinking, flaring and sporting shooting I much prefer crows and feral pigeons in the 30-50 yd range to the few game species I hunt.

From the little I've seen an heard of it, I think I'd immensely enjoy pass shooting teal and divers but I haven't had the opportunity.

Mike, I'd start by pointing out that guys like you and Stan are way above average in shooting skill. When a guy like Brister writes a book on shotgunning, if he aimed only for you guys, he'd have a very small potential audience. Same with me, when I write a book on pheasant hunting, or articles on bird hunting, chokes and loads, etc. A lot of our readers are going to fall within the group, as tested by Tom Roster in his CONSEP program (I think something like 20,000 people now run through the program) who cannot hit half the crossing clay targets at 20 yards. And the sad fact is, a very solid majority of those he tested could not do that.

Re the value of cylinder, Brister points out: "I do know that at 25 yards a pure cylinder barrel will throw one of the deadliest game-getting patterns you ever looked at, more efficient at that yardage than a full choke barrel at 50 yards." One reason I don't mangle pheasants is because I use less choke than most people. And I will indeed put a pheasant on the ground at 25 yards. Why? Well, if I happen to make a slight "aiming error" and that bird comes down with some life in him, there's very little chance he will escape my dog. If I do the same and put him on the ground at 45 yards with life in him, it takes the dog that much longer to get there, giving the bird that much more chance to escape. If you look at the statistics from Roster's steel shot lethality tests, you'll find that almost no birds escaped if they were dropped inside 30 yards. And that's using loads as light as an ounce of steel 6's. "Wounding losses" were 5 time as great beyond 40 yards as inside 30 yards. And overall, the wounding loss rate in Roster's test was over twice what my own is. True, his hunters were taking some longer shots and using pretty light loads, but they were also shooting the easier to knock down and recover preserve birds, versus my own records on the hardier and more likely to run wild birds.

I can't say what results in mangled pheasants or anything else, but too much choke at a bird that's too close is the likely combination to do it. And with quail, woodcock, grouse, prairie chickens, etc. Happens more frequently than it should. As far as pheasants go, since Roster's tests showed that an ounce of steel 6's are adequate at 30 yards, and since most people aren't very reliable shots much beyond 30 yards, most pheasant hunters would be well served to hold their fire on anything outside 30 yards, and use a cylinder or skeet-bored gun shooting an ounce of lead 7 1/2's. That choke-load combination would do a fine job with little mangling.

As for the "dead bird flying", that bird has in fact absorbed a lethal hit. It's just not immediately lethal. And I've never thought of it as being a function of the choke in question. Rather, that the pellet strike(s) did not do their job in the first few seconds. However, I've never considered those birds to be any sort of problem. They fly, you watch them, they fall from the sky, you go pick them up. About the only hard part can be finding them if they drop in heavy cover because, dropping dead, they don't leave a lot of scent for your dog to work with. But every one of them I've ever seen, when they exhibit that behavior, is dead on the spot. I'm far more concerned with the ones that come down with two good legs and some life left in them.

If you hunt much, especially pheasants, there will always be cripples and there will always be misses, even on birds that should be easy. Back in 1988, a hunting partner and I entered the US Open Pheasant Championship--one of those "run and gun" affairs where it's two hunters and a dog in a relatively small field with 6 pheasants released. Winning score is based on getting the 6 birds in the least amount of time, using the fewest shells. Of the 150 teams entered, only 38 got their 6 birds within the 30 minute time limit, and only 3 of those 38 teams (one of them being me and my partner) killed their 6 birds with 6 shots. Results on wild birds won't be that good.

So, in summary, a lot of people need the help a more open choke will give them. Most people don't shoot 10,000 targets a year, nor even 1,000. Probably should, but we're dealing with reality here, not what should be. Again, per Brister:

"The value of just a little more pattern spread at close range, or the disadvantage of not enough of it, can easily be proved on a skeet range. Take out your modified or full-choke hunting gun sometime and see how many skeet targets you can break with it. If you're a champ you may break them all. But if you're an average shooter you're more likely to be embarrassed."

Mike, you may seek out coverts where you have to take your grouse at 30 yards or more. (Most places I hunt grouse, at least until the leaves are down, it'd be a rare ruff I could even SEE at 30 yards!) Most people seek out places they can find grouse and have a reasonable chance of putting them in the bag. For most people, that 30 yard grouse is going to be approaching (or may well already have flown beyond) their maximum effective range. So if you can use tight chokes, they're wonderful things. But most people would rather have the 70% pattern of a cylinder bore at 25 yards--or would certainly shoot better if they did--rather than the 70% pattern of a full choke at 40 yards (which throws a 100% pattern at 25 yards).

This has been an interesting thread, hearing different views and the defenses of them, but I am afraid that I may have been misunderstood. In light of that I want to state plainly that I am not against open choked guns, when used in their proper place. First shot on covey rises, woodies coming full bore into a tiny beaver pond, and woodcock shooting in the places I hunt them are all prudent uses of the more open chokes.

My problem is with the blanket statements like, "nobody needs any choke over skeet constriction", or "full choked guns are useless with today's ammunition", or the statement that Michael McIntosh wrote in the article for SSM where he flatly stated that "choke is obsolete with today's ammo".

I have no problem with a man stating that he doesn't need any choke in his guns for his type of hunting, as King stated. I'd never tell anybody else what they need unless they asked my advice. But, I sure as heck don't want them telling me what I don't need, either.

SRH

I agree with Stan's entire post, but most especially with this sentiment. And I want to point out the fundamental contrast of this attitude with that taken by Larry Brown, Bob Brister, Michael McIntosh, et al:

"A lot of our readers ...cannot hit half the crossing clay targets at 20 yards. And the sad fact is, a very solid majority of those he tested could not do that."

Sad indeed. Sad that skeet fields with 25 lifeless, inanimate targets are so difficult to come by.

"So, in summary, a lot of people need the help a more open choke will give them."

And sad that people write so persuasively to advocate "spray & pray" with an open choke versus learning how to shoot a shotgun. Sad to advocate the midset that a few inches wider, but sparser, less lethal pattern will lead to "better" shooting.

Again, per Brister:

"The value of just a little more pattern spread at close range, or the disadvantage of not enough of it, can easily be proved on a skeet range. Take out your modified or full-choke hunting gun sometime and see how many skeet targets you can break with it. If you're a champ you may break them all. But if you're an average shooter you're more likely to be embarrassed."


Per Campbell:

"It has been amply demonstrated that the game of skeet is one of perfection...breaking 100x100 targets...with a .410 shotgun. However, it's fixed, repeatable angles, speed and distances make it unsurpassed as a classroom for learning and practicing all the fundamentals of wingshooting. With its low cost and ready availability, if you hunt gamebirds with a shotgun, and can't break 80% of the targets from stations 2 thru 6 with a modified choke, you should be embarassed."

Well, they're not telling you, an experienced and opinionated guy, they're telling the majority of us non-experienced folks. I don't see any problem with that.

You guys who advocate ONLY open chokes probably do not hunt in the desert southwest. Late season doves out here are usually 40-plus yard shots. Jump shooting doves in the sand dunes is often a 50-60 yard proposition. If we wait for the doves to come to us, that can mean an empty bag. Quail in the parts of AZ where we hunt usually requires #6 shot and M/F chokes because of distance and cover. We don't see too many wild pheasants, but when we do they are spooky so it's tight chokes for them too. Chukar can be a day of climbing with no shots because they are up at 100 yards and gone, so I'm not going to waste my energy carrying a gun with C/IC chokes.