doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Do we need choke?

No, Joe. Just lots of money, lots of time, and lots of driven birds.

Stopping to think about it . . . when I lived in Morocco, if I'd had the time and the inclination (and had I been a better shot than I was), my season bag could've reached 4 figures fairly easily. That's on walked up birds, over dogs. The daily limit on quail (coturnix) was 50, and that was not at all unrealistic.

Does modern moderate quality gun need chokes?
Yes, it does.
Old guys such as Mortimer or F.O.Matska in St.Petersburg even knew how to make tight pattern from barrels without chokes (but for several shot numbers only). But it was expensive guns with expensive hand honed barrels. Moderate quality gun needs chokes still and especially where hunter needs very tight pattern such as turkey or capercaillie hunting or goose hunting.
I respect MM, but he dreams in this case imho.

Sam, I wasn't trying to pick a fight with you, I just pointed out the fact that Winchester chose to change the 101 skeet guns to cyl in all gauges. I have shot a lot of skeet, over 125,000 registered targets, and probably twice that many in practice. At one time I managed to get classed as AA in all four gauges, and have been classified in AAA class in the .410 at times. I have never shot much at paper because I believe that I can tell all I need to know by the way the targets are breaking (or not breaking!). I did some of my best shooting with a Remington 3200 with Purbaugh tubes. The 20 had 0.014" of choke and the .410 had 0.007", and if memory serves, the 28 had about 0.006". I have known or at least seen the top skeet shooters over the last 35 years, and you are correct that they are shooting pretty tight chokes in all gauges, because they have the ability to do so, and they don't have to take a chance on that 1 of 100 targets slipping through a hole in the pattern. I have also shot cylinder bore guns in 12 and 20 gauges, and thought that they were adequate for skeet, but they won't give you that confidence building smoke puff that tighter constrictions will, and confidence is at least 5% of the final score.

Amen, brother. Sometimes a lot more than 5%. I'm not a skeet shooter, having only shot maybe ten rounds in my life, but the same statement holds true for sporting clays. There's nothing much prettier in shooting than a falling chandelle that literally "goes away" from a dense centered pattern.

Stan

My apologies, Tom. Your comment about confidence is spot-on. Any good target shooter will learn, or have learned, what he needs to know about the limitations of cylinder. Field shooting doesn't ordinarily provide that sort of volume. So, up here at least, I debate this issue more with hunters of grouse/WC covers. Well, a cyl 12 and factory trap loads is one thing - a cyl 28 with 3/4 oz #7.5s is another.

Sam

Yes, the limitations are geographical indeed, keep it in New England, because cylinder is as useless as tits on a boar out West............

I don't guess you've ever experienced opening day of dove season somewhere that has 100 mile visibility.....?....

Few folks that love to hunt desert quail or bandtails in western USA would ever want a cylinder bore anything, at least not after a hunt or two for these birds. Desert quail prefer to run rather than flush, usually flush at more like full choke distances, seldom hold for pointing dogs.IF not totally dead when they hit ground, they run for nearest dense, thorny bushes, never to be retreived. Bandtails are "talltreetop" birds, seldom providing any closer shots.

Niklas

The "limitations" often depend on things like the birds, the habitat, hunting pressure etc as much as (or more than) geography. I don't think you need any more choke for a grouse or woodcock in Upper Michigan than you do in Maine. And especially early in the season, you don't need any either place--at least not in a 20ga or larger. I hunted wild pheasants for several years with a 16 and a couple 12's choked .005 in the R barrel, which is not a lot and certainly less than most people would suggest. But over good pointing dogs, using the right loads (between an ounce and 1 1/16 of 7's or Brit 6's), the combination was absolutely deadly.

Doug, You guess right. 100 feet is often pushing it first week of October. But even then a cyl 28 isn't for me. Sam