doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Cylinder Choke - Your Thoughts

I don't think there is much "MAGIC" to choke selection, but I use Cylinder for Skeet, most Sporting Clay stations,and preserve quail & pheasant. Works well for me...

JERRY

Breaking clays at distances of 35 - 45 yards or longer with cylinder or skeet-in chokes is a lot easier to do than to put a live bird on the ground at the same distances with the same chokes.
Full choke has its limits too and too many wild game shooters over-extend their gun's limit both with full choke as well as with cylinder. Use whichever choke, or lack thereof, in clays games but for live birds, common sense must rule.

Cylinder is very effective for early season grouse. Probably the best choice in your first barrel. The game changes a bit in November when they become more skiddish but I would any more choke then IC, no matter what time of season it is for grouse.

I wouldn't consider a cylinder barrel for pass shooting. But if a cylinder barrel performs according to "theory," it should put close to 100% of the pattern inside a 35" circle at 20 yards. That is 460 pellets if you are shooting an 1 1/8 oz of 8s, which equates to an average of 1 pellet in every 2.13 sq. in. of the pattern, or 1 pellet in every 3.8 sq. in. if you are shooting an 1 1/8 oz of 6s. That would suggest a pretty effective pattern for a right/bottom barrel when hunting upland game over dogs. Of course, that all assumes that your cylinder barrel performs according to "theory."

Reduce that load to 7/8 oz, though, and some choke starts to look like a good idea.

Most of the shooting I do is at grouse and woodcock. Cylinder choke may be fine for some, but it messes with my mind. Knowing I don't have choke makes me rush the shot, "shoot before it gets away". A little choke is a confidence builder.
terc

"The least little thing will balk a shooter". It's a true statement IMHO. The statement choke is irrelevant is just ridiculous, I think. Modern shotshells have tightened up patterns, but have not made choke superfluous, thank goodness. If all we had was cylinder choke, like in the pre-choke era, shooting life would be soooooo boring!

Makes one wonder, what was the effective range of those guns/shells?

A cylinder pattern is a big pattern. Three times this season I unintentionally took took wild bobwhite out of covey rise. Once I took three. My shooting student Joe Wood also had an unitentional double.

If I want to fill the game bag I use cylinder.

The cylinder pattern has good density at 40 yards - if you look at the center eight inches of the pattern.

Fun topic. There has been enough varied responses to prove one thing: every constriction has a useful purpose. There is no correct or incorrect "one size fits all" answer. I am perfectly happy using my cylinder bored guns on quail but feel very inferior pass shooting geese with anything but a full choke. Incidentally, I grew up in a time when a full choke was the only manly boring to use and it was a hard habit to break but glad I did.

Sorta reminds me of being asked what is the best fly to use on a trout stream. The best answer is "whichever you have the most confidence in".

Choke selection is based on part on what works for you and what you have confidence in. One year I shot everything with I/C using a pump gun that I restocked. That gun killed limits of dove, quail, ducks, geese, had multiple hundred straights at skeet and several 97's at trap. Much to my regret I never ran a hundred in trap with it but it was shooter error not the gun or chokes fault. At that time I was supremely confident that that gun, with I/C choke, proper shells with the right shot would hit what ever I was shooting.

In hind sight I was often limiting my shots to high percentage shots which is only reasonable when hunting. Sky busting is for fools and a-holes in the next blind. Dramatic, long range kills look great but are often the shot of desperation when a bird is first missed or just lightly hit at more moderate ranges and extreme range shots are taken to bring a possibly wounded bird down.

Now days I tend to favor skeet or i/c and mod for close work and light mod and improved mod for distant work. But sometimes I just pick up a gun and try to adjust to what it has to offer. The size of the bag limit is no longer important and the hunt is more a way to learn than show off. hten again I do not shoot with world beaters like Mike and Joe. If I did I might have to double my sights or standards to keep up.