Larry,
My opinions are not worth any more than anyone else's, but, here they are. I fall in with the ones who say leave a HIGH condition one alone, but only if it is truly HIGH condition. They are the ones the collectors really want badly. If you want to use the gun yourself for what you said, and intend to keep it, open'em up. Maybe not as much as you're thinking, though. You can always take more out, but you can't put it back.
As for the highly touted spreader loads, they are just that. BUT, they will not open a mod. or full choked gun into a decent woodcock gun, as one suggested. Unless one has the opportunity to pass-shoot high flying migrations. They absolutely will not. I have tried many, many different spreader loads. Some store bought, some I loaded myself using short wads, post wads, x-dividers, soda-straws in the shot, and combinations of the above. I've NEVER found one that would reliably pattern well and open the pattern up any more than the equivalent of about .010" constriction. And this is at their BEST. So, the full barrel might shoot as open as modified, and the mod. barrel might shoot as open as improved cylinder. Might, I stress. If that's enough, then spreaders are all you need, and you've saved money on top of preserving the "sanctity" of a Parker.
I, not being a purist collector, might even pay a bit MORE for a gun in which the chokes had been modified, if they were more useful to me. I rather believe there are more buyers out there who feel like me about that than ones who are purist Parker collectors. And lets face it, not many of us has any need for full chokes in 20 guage guns today, anyway. Oh yeah, except purist collectors who can stare at it in the safe and say, "It's all original!".
Stan
