Skeet in and Skeet out makes for useful hunting chokes for upland birds. Short barrel Skeet guns, two chokes were the norm in my younger days. Now we get 30-34" O/U tube sets weighing nine to ten pounds instead of four different 870's, 1100's or model 12 and 42's. One gun instead of four and one sight picture instead of four. Four barrel sets made high scores much more attainable, by the slightly above average shooters, but tube sets made hundreds such a common thing that today even a .410 hundred straight does not turn too many heads. Equipment has been advanced to almost perfection, the game made so regimented that almost all variables have been removed or reduced and high average shooters refuse to shoot in bad weather because they do not want to ruin their average in a single event. We use to shoot in wind, rain, snow, whatever, but we also never were in the running for All American.
In my youth, major shoots were won outright with 99's in the .410. My local club .410 shoot had two 100 straights last month. I ended up "winning" it because the other fellow left for a family affair. I offered to shoot it off with him later, or just be co champions but he was not interested in shooting it off the next week. So I told them to split the money, not a big payout, and then put his name on the plaque. Mine was on there from the last two years, once misspelled with Jon with a H. My mother would not be impressed.
I had a uncle who had a Crescent .410 he used for quail, with "reversed chokes", with the triggers reversed for left handed shooting, left barrel off the front trigger and the right barrel off the rear, and the left was I/C while the right was so tightly choked that it would ink Skeet birds at station four. He shot right handed but by his end of hunting, his hands were so arthritic that he needed the extra room for his fat finger joints to work the triggers. I think he repurposed a trigger guard off a Syracuse Arms double to get extra room. When I later restored the trigger, to right handed operation the right barrel shot "rifled slugs" out of the shot load and the left was open. I left the chokes as they were as a way to remember him. If you ever want to see a nice ten inch pattern at 20 yards, borrow it and be impressed.
