Some eventually go the anti-intuitive route, that I did with sporting clays, and forget about choke all together. I use two fixed MOD chokes and just shoot them on everything, near and far. Been doing that for nearly ten years now, and am shooting the best of my life (at age 66). On close "rabbits" I'll drop in a Fiocchi Interceptor spreader load, only because "rabbits" are so unpredictable. Other than that ...............just smoke 'em.
When we shoot a station that has relatively close birds I sometimes quip "Reckon I've got enough choke for those?", in a joking way. When no chips hit the ground you know two things........ you had enough choke, and you had 'im in the center of your pattern. Both great confidence builders.
SRH
Sounds good, Stan. I've been shooting with my fixed M/IM chokes on my Krieghoff for a long time. I forced myself to shoot with the tight chokes and they force you to be on target. I just sent my barrels off to Briley today and am going to get a set of thin-walled chokes installs. I plan to use M/IM about 70% of the time and work back down to IC/M for the other stations. I want that extra 1-2 birds on my scorecard that I know I'm dropping. Sometimes I struggle with 20 yard crossers that I've never seen before. Takes me about 4 tries to dial it in shooting M. I know if I opened it up a bit, I would have an extra 15" to play with and might get a chip and extra bird on my scorecard.
