Hi all, I was recently reading an article by the late Michael McIntosh in which he states that choke is pretty much obsolete due to modern shotshell performance.

So....do you agree or disagree with what he has to say?

Anyone pattern a cylinder bore and what were your results?

Thanks!

Greg

I think ultra tight chokes are obsolete....I am breaking some long range targets with .020.....

Ken, what makes you think in your case the choke has anything to do with it?

David,

Authoritative breaks at extended distances are proof enough for me. Cylinder past 60 yards has not proven to be too efficient (for me) YMMV....

Thanks,
Ken

Far too many years of shooting NSSA Skeet has made a 35 yard shot at a Pheasant seem incredibly long to me!! I shot a lot of NSSA registered Skeet with 12- and 20-gauge Model 12s that started life as Field Grades on which I had the barrels whacked to 26-inches and Simmons ribs installed. I posted enough 100 straights with those two guns to know that choke certainly isn't needed at Skeet ranges with plastic shot cup shells.

McIntosh was wrong. All depends on what you hunt and where and with what.

Cylinder is perfect for Skeet (IMHO).....

I love cyl in my right barrel for wild roosters. Full in left barrel works well too. Close working Springer's, cylinder bore and a good 1200 FPS, 1&1/8 OZ load has proved deadly for me. Just this guys opinion.
Steve

Ken, that is what I was implying. If you can shoot, you can shoot, choke does not play to much into it. A cylinder choke for skeet is great, but there are many terrific shots that can break skeet with a full choke.

If you shoot a bobwhite at typical range with a full choke, and center the pattern, you won't have much left.In my younger days,one I killed had the wad in it. That is pretty close.
Mike

This may have been posted here before, but Terry Wieland and Gil/Vicki Ash put together a very interesting graphic display of how various chokes perform at various distances. My takeaway was the two most versatile chokes for most upland game scenarios were SK/MOD.
Choke Performance

Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey was an ardent defender of cylinder bored barrels, but his comments were primarily directed to incoming driven birds.

Cylinder Barrels

This is picking nits but I have shot more game and clay targets with a 16 gauge Fox choked Skeet 1 and 2 chokes than any other combination but when I start getting sloppy on quail I go back to a full choked Savage 220 .410 single. Gets me back on track quickly.

I read that article by Michael McIntosh and I tried shooting long stationary targets with cylinder chokes.
After that I took anything that Michael McIntosh said with a grain of salt.
Just check and see how many trap shooters use cylinder chokes for their relatively short trap targets.
If you have any doubts try it yourself.
Pete

I find that I do better on a skeet course with full choke than I do on a distance challenging clays course with cylinder chokes. I definitely prefer a little choke in my gun

Depends on what kind of shooting we're talking about. Here's what Bob Brister had to say about cylinder in "Shotgunning: The Art and the Science": "I do know that at 25 yards a pure-cylinder barrel will throw one of the deadliest game-getting patterns you ever looked at, more efficient at that yardage than a full-choke barrel at 50 yards." In fact, if you look at pattern percentages listed for various chokes at various distances, cylinder is typically credited with 70% at 25 yards--which is, of course, the full choke standard at 40 yards.

If we're talking upland hunting, most birds are shot--not shot AT, but killed or knocked down and retrieved--within that 25 yard range, or not much farther. Which makes it a very useful choke for upland hunters. And the fact cylinder opens quickly helps make up for aiming errors average shooters might make at close range with tighter chokes. Or badly mangled birds, if they center them too close with too much choke.

To properly engage targets beyond 25 yards with predictable efficiency, especially live birds which require multiple pellet hits to humanely kill, choke constriction is required. Yes you can regularly bust clay, but not when the difference between winning and losing on a clays range is one or two targets.

Cylinder chip breaks will cheat you of the practice that should result from consistent move, mount, shoot. It will give you false confidence.

Yes close skeet targets can be taken, but even great and skilled skeet shooters use some choke.

I shoot the same choke on clays as on birds which is 5 & 15 points of constriction, that has worked well for me. You must find what works best for the type of shooting you most often do. This includes matching the load speed even when you change from one weight of load to another ( say 7/8 to 1 oz) . I find that the key to success is to pick out a velocity, say 1150 FPS ( i know one shooter who fires 1300 at everything) then stay with that load speed and choke for a while.

Your brain and body develop muscle and brain memory from consistency that will do far more than playing with opening the choke.

This will help your shooting more than spreading the pattern for cheap, but inconsistent target success.

Cylinder guns killed a great deal of game before choked weapons supplanted them. Our forefathers figured out choke was better than choke, they were right.

McIntosh got paid by the word.

So did the late Charley Waterman, at least by Ed Gray when he ran GSJ--

Yeah, but I am a pass shooter- tower birds, storied Limey Shotgun Meister George Digweed how his 12 bore Perrazi O/U is choked. I'll bet you a pint and the Ballz and Bullcocks Pub that the old weed-digger prefers tight chokes- you don't crumble crows and wood pigeons at extreme yardage as he does with ease- with cylinder boring- None of my 12 bores, whether M12's or side-by-doubles, have anything more open than a Mod.--

First, cylinder is not choke. It is the absence of it.

Second, Anybody who champions cylinder for all wingshooting should join me on a late season dove field. They will be quickly embarrassed, and/or go home empty handed.

Third, McIntosh loved to stir the pot. Not for one second do I believe he really thought that. I challenged his statement on this very board, where he used to post occasionally, right after he wrote that, and he vanished. He never came back and posted again. I didn't want that at all, I wanted him to discuss it and provide evidence for his postulation. I guess he knew he couldn't.

Lastly, the ONLY place a cylinder is appropriate for me is shooting woodies in a tight little beaver pond at first light with steel shot. Any shot there over 25 yards is through the trees and can't be taken anyway, and steel will pattern much tighter than lead out of a cylinder barrel.

It was, and is, an obscenely irrational statement, IMO. I lost a lot of respect for him as a writer when he "said" that.

SRH

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.

Nearly all my shooting is over decoys. I wouldn't cry if all I had was cylinder.

Since all my guns are vintage British or American and now, thanks to being a bit selective, pretty nice examples of the maker's art, I shoot them all the way I got them. Lots of the Brits are cylinder and full. The American guns are choked pretty tight in general. I use RST's or Polywad in all of them. I've used the spreaders in the tighter ones and haven't really noticed a difference in the number of birds in the bag. I'm not a serious clay shooter and I only shoot them for fun and tune-ups. If I kept score and a log maybe I could tell the difference but I just love to shoot them all.

Has anyone besides me noticed that when most writers extol the virtues of a Cylinder bore gun the comparison is virtually always made to a gun having Full choke. True in most upland situations a Cylinder gun is more useful than a full choked one.
In My opinion though a 1/4 choked one is much more useful & versatile than either. A 1/4 choke in a 12ga will run to about .010" constriction which is what many of the old US makers stamped as Imp Cylinder. A true IC is just what it says & only goes to about .005/.006".

True scientific pattern analysis was carried out and results published by General Journee in the early 1900s, Ed Lowry in the 1970s and now we have Dr Andrew Jones.

Jones has the advantage of instant pattern analysis via scanning and bit mapping software, ie he does not have to count pellets, and that has allowed him to analyse 2500 patterns for his book on shotgun performance.

The conclusion from the above is that choke works, plastic wads are no substitutes for choke, and that optimum pattern density for succesful hits needs some choke.

Anyone wanting to know choke and how it works, I think will benefit from Dr Jones book.

Not likely. But then there's a fair amount of ignorance going around when it comes to outdoor writers.

McIntosh was writing for a broad audience, not a collection of George Digweeds--although I don't believe I've seen George raise his hand in this particular group. Hey George . . . are you out there?

What most guys who shoot well fail to recognize is that hunters AS A GROUP are pretty poor shots. Tom Roster has run thousands of them through his CONSEP program, and what he's found is that two thirds of them can't hit half the crossing clays thrown at 20 yards. Those guys obviously need all the help they can get to hit CLOSE targets, let alone long ones. Cylinder will almost certainly kill birds farther away than shooters with capabilities at that level can hit them regularly. To harken back to my military days, the maximum effective range of the gun and load often exceeds that of the shooter.

Grouse and woodcock hunters frequently take close shots. Steve Smith has written that his average first shot at woodcock comes at slightly over 13 yards; at grouse, about 22 yards. Nick Sisley likewise touts cylinder for both woodcock and grouse. He writes about a season during which he shot 78% on grouse (33 birds bagged) with a Franchi 20 gauge autoloader with the barrel cut back: no choke. Average shot distance: 23 yards. All of that sounds about right from my own experience with grouse and woodcock. And when you're talking shots inside 15 yards--note Smith's average range on woodcock--it's not so much about an open choke helping you to hit the birds as it is about putting them in the bag in condition fit for the table.

Cylinder isn't the only answer, but it's a very good answer for a lot of upland hunting, and a lot of upland hunters. I'm convinced more upland hunters are overchoked than underchoked.

And for the original poster, since I know he's a pheasant hunter: I've never gone quite as open as cyl in a pheasant gun, but I find that .005 in the right barrel of a 12 works just fine over good dogs. If you're doing the big group thing in South Dakota, you probably need more. But a hunter or two and a good dog or two, in good pheasant country . . . you don't need much choke for most first shots at roosters. And I've observed that that's true in my home state of Iowa, even with very depressed bird numbers. Last hunt of the season this year, two of us moved 6 roosters. Two were at maybe Stinger missile range. The other 4: All easily inside 25 yards. That was in early January, temperature around 20, strong wind--when you might expect surviving roosters to be pretty jumpy. Not what we found. Nor what I've found on other hunts after Iowa's now much scarcer birds the last few seasons. Fewer shots, but not necessarily longer ones.

As for Dr. Jones, his theory on the number of single pellet breaks we get at skeet leads me to believe he needs to spend less time at the computer and more time on a skeet field, picking up unbroken targets with a hole or two in them. Straights at skeet would be pretty rare if they involved many single pellet breaks, since we know that it's not at all unusual for a single pellet hit to result in a miss.

A point I would consider of note is that it has long been known that a small degree of choke (e.g. the UK improved cylinder) gives a much more consistent pattern than true cylinder (as well as a slightly denser pattern) and is also thought to be more consistent across different cartridges.

I am a rather average shot (as said above, many game shots such as myself are not very good by overall standards!) and I find that improved cylinder or quarter choke in the right barrel and quarter or half in the left barrel (which is a pretty common combination in a UK sporting gun) suits me just fine.

On the subject of choke I've acquired a gun with a full/mod configuration. I want to open the bottom mod to either cyl imp or skeet (10 or 5) Woodcock is what I'm thinking of but have never hunted them, pheasant for sure and i know Cyl imp or full works for them. Advice from woodcock hunters would be appreciated.

Very good point. Even the smallest amount of choke will generally improve the pattern, even if it doesn't necessarily make it tighter. Even a few .001" of choke will give resistance to the wad as it exits the bore and help it separate from the shot column, and reduce any negative effects the wad might have on the pattern.

I find it interesting that we are having a conversation about cylinder choke, and no one has thus far mentioned that few are the shtoguns that have a true .729 bore, something particularly true off the continent, were a tighter bore was favored for many years.
A 12 gauge shotgun with a .719 bore, and a .719 choke, or no choke in the end, is going to pattern differently than a shotgun with a .729 bore and no choke. Even though the average bloke would call either gun "cylinder" choked, or, more correctly, no choke.

Best,
Ted

Of course shooting Clays and Bird killing are different. However, I use a .012 in both bbls of my O/U for Clays. I was consistently breaking Clays last weekend at a Sporting Clays event with 1 oz 7 1/2 shot,,012 chokes at 45-60 yds.

"Straights at skeet would be pretty rare if they involved many single pellet breaks, since we know that it's not at all unusual for a single pellet hit to result in a miss."

They are rare, if we are talking about ISSF (Olympic) Skeet that starts with gun down, an unpredictable launch due to delay from 0 to 3 seconds, and initial target speed of 120 kmh, and a max load of 24 grams of No 9 European shot.

Dr Jones is an Englishman and most likely this is the Skeet he knows. There is no American type skeet outside the USA and Canada.

As for the statistical analysis of 2500 patterns, they covered a LOT more than single pellet hits on clays. He is the thrid successive serious researcher ( a professional research scientist by profession) who strongly indicates the Gaussian nature of patterns regardless of degree of choke. This is his most important contribution and if it was understood it would solve many of the non problems occupying shooters' time. To put it another way, it would be better to shoot more and agonize less.

If time permits, play around with this program on Dr. Jones' website. It shows how random patterns can be, but it also is an excellent tool for figuring what pattern performance you need to optimize your chances at various size targets.

Pattern Optimizer

All I know is that I had a 12 ga 311 Stevens back 30 years ago, that was cut down to 24", and I soldered in .008" shim stock and ground a taper in the left barrel. I swear I killed more pheasants with the rt cyl choke barrel, even one that I thought I was 2 ft behind, as it went behind a cedar tree. Paid $25 for it, with a cracked stock. Left barrel patterned mod choke. Deadly, but ugly. Put a stock on from Herters--wait that was 45 years ago.

I have killed more game with cylinder bored guns than with anything else over the years. That includes spur wing geese at the big end and button quail at the small. I prefer it for hunting.

Could you please explain why this is so?

Go out and shoot a round of trap with full and then switch to cylinder.There's a difference on some of the wide birdes and maybe it's because I'm a poor shot but there's a difference. I hunt with vintage guns ,cylinder bores and pass on the far bird.

I bagged my 1st gobbler of the year Saturday afternoon with an 1870s W. and C. Scott & Son 10ga with original cylinder barrels. I called him in close though...Geo

Could you please explain your question? No offense, but, I touched on several points.

Best,
Ted

I thought it was pretty straightforward. Why does a cylinder .729 bore pattern differently than a cylinder .719? It is my understanding that the degree of constriction rather than the bore size (within limits) is the determining factor of choke. I would appreciate others' thoughts on this as well.

An English maker once made a bore that started out at 12 bore (.729) and tapered at a constant rate to a 20 bore (.619) It threw cylinder patterns. It is the constriction in the last few inches of the barrels that does the choking.

That is the Vena Contraca. I have one by Trulock & Harris.

It should make no difference what the bore is - the concentrating effect will be produced by the degree to which the bore differs from the choke section.

I beleive you need to go by what all the top sporting clay shooters are shooting. More and more are changing to shooting tighter chokes. I regularly shoot clays with a guy who shoots Improved Modified in his Beretta auto. Even though the targets are close he still beats most of us.
A lot of English Bests were choked cylinder and full, I suppose for driven birds. I myself prefer to stick with more open chokes for target and 1 ounce #8's. When you get old you need all the advantages you can get.

And then there are those shots at grouse under 10 yards because you don't see them before or after........


just a thot (QUIZ: What member famously ended each of his posts with that?)

What the top sporting clays shooters are shooting makes sense for sporting clays, where the top shooters do their shooting. Doesn't make sense for most upland hunting, where most shots are at skeet distances.

Re what constitutes cylinder, I think someone above spelled it out: Reach in as far as your bore and choke gauge will go. If there's no constriction from where you start to where you end, that's zero choke: cylinder. Bore could be .739, .729, .719. If that's also the measurement at the muzzle, that's cylinder. Were that not true, a cylinder bored 16, 20, or 28 would pattern differently than a cylinder bored 12. Which they don't. All should produce roughly the same pattern PERCENTAGE at 25 yards.

It is not the difference in the bore at 15" from the muzzle and the muzzle. It is the difference between the bore at 3" (or 2" or 4")from the muzzle and the muzzle. That is why I brought up the English gun Dig identified as the Vena Contracta. If you measured the constriction in the last 15" of the bore of a Vena Contracta it would be about 55/1000ths or improved full yet it shot a cylinder pattern. If you measured the constriction in the last 27" of the bore (30" barrel)it would be 99/1000ths or full full full choke. Yet the Vena Contracta gave cylinder patterns.

]
AmarilloMike Offline
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Registered: July 14, 2005
Posts: 4080
Loc: Amarillo, Texas An English maker once made a bore that started out at 12 bore (.729) and tapered at a constant rate to a 20 bore (.619) It threw cylinder patterns. It is the constriction in the last few inches of the barrels that does the choking.
_________________________
Amarillo Mike
I believe you but where did you read that . That is interesting.
E me montgom@tecinfo.comXXXXXXXXXXXWWWWWWWW

All of my double guns except one are left barrel full right barrel mod. For pheasants I used to load one barrel with #4's and the other barrel with #2's. When I shot they did a nose dive to the ground and stayed there. Now days both barrels are loaded with #4's.........chokes remain the same.

Too, there is often significant difs with ammunition from the same bbl., e.g. a high quality trap or target load vs. an inexpensive 'promotional' round vs. a thumping blaster round ... for those who need to feel the recoil to have confidence vs. a reload with seemingly low velocity [<1150 fps] that throws tighter than expected patterns. In any case, only time at the pattern board and shooting multiple patterns & some form of analysis will tell you what's going on with any certainty.

For example, some so-called 'spreader' loads don't 'spread' very much.

Another example that comes to mind was finding that some of those 'rifled' choke tubes that are advertised to open patterns give typical IC results w/most loads. Another was finding that some Remington Premier 27 trap loads in #7.5 produced some well balanced 65% patterns out of a cylinder bbl. in one particular gun.

One can go back and read some of the 'card tests' that were performed in England before choke boring became the fashion to see that differences were being reported even at that time to both penetration and pattern densities with some makers using those results to hawk their 'improved' cylinder borings. Naturally, the powder and shot and ammunition makers too were all claiming superior products. Some of them probably were.

I suspect then as now, irrespective of gun or ammuntion used that the better shots experienced the best overall results.

Garwood or Burrard but I can't tell you for sure.

I love cylinder for skeet and close to medium range preserve birds, but on western covey rises of huns and chukars at range (30-45 yds), I've shot cyl/full choked guns and found that I scored most of my kills with the full choked left barrel, and many misses with the cyl barrel. As stated earlier, it all depends on the what, where,and how far. Cylinder for everything is just nonsensical imo.

I shot many times with the late "Uncle Robert" Brister at sporting clays. I don't know of anyone else who constantly experimented with shotguns, chokes, shells, etc. more than Bob. His success at skeet, trap, sporting clays, and live pigeons on the highest competitive levels meant he was someone I would listen to regarding shotguns and shooting. He once told me that under 40 yards cylinder bore was deadly and 40 yards and beyond you might as well have full choke. A deadly colombaire shooter, Bob once used a Remington 3200 trap gun with the lower barrel cut off 4" in front of the forearm...cylinder for the first shot and full for the second. My lifelong shooting buddy has that gun now. I have an English hammer gun with 30" .724 bore barrels that are not choked. Doves and clay targets are hammered at ranges out to 35 or more yards with 7/8 oz. 1100 fps. light loads. Unless I am pass shooting ducks, geese or sandhill cranes, open chokes of IC or less is what I use even in 28 ga. Once I had the pleasure of shooting and talking guns with a noted British sporting clays champion and asked him how often he changed chokes during a tournament in his O/U....he admitted he had let the chokes rust in and couldn't get them out; they were both IC. Targets out to 50 yards were smoked with those IC chokes. Like Uncle Robert said, "You're either on 'em or you ain't"

An old 6.5lb 12ga Ithaca Deerlsayer Police Special (later known as LAPD model) makes for very fine upland and skeet gun.
The availability of lower velocity tactical slugs and buck shot (including precious Federal premium LE flight control SG BK shot) from several manufacturers is icing of the cake, baby!

If one were to read the ENTIRE McIntosh article in question ("More Things We Can Do Without", Shooting Sportsman, Sept/Oct 2010), one would discover that he does not say "cylinder for everything". He's focusing mainly on upland hunters, per the following quote from that article:

"For upland hunters, choke now is more bane than boon. Choke performance traditionally is measured at 40 yards--but it's a well-documented fact that the great majority of upland birds are killed within 25 yards of the gun."

I use and own ONLY full and modified chokes and use them anywhere, any target, I adjust the ammo for the topography and target as J.R.B. mentioned above. To each his own though.


BUT, Here's something perfect for the North Eastern, North Central brush/lot/grouse hunters and folks who just can't keep it on target and love more "spread" or have poor eyesight........

Perfect for the modern day pilgrim Doug. ROFLMAO

That plus Glock 20 loaded with new Federal 180gr Trophy Bonded Bear Claws at 1275fps, oh yeees. Makes one want to jump up and whistle Dixie!

Everyone has to feel confident that they are using what is best for them. A gun with two barrels without constriction would not work well for me except on the rare day that the birds are sitting exceptionally well. For my hunting conditions I want a gun with at least the constriction equivalent of modified in the left barrel. Anything up to modified works well enough for me in the right barrel. Now, if I was shooting larger payloads or at larger targets less choke might work but a big payload for me is 7/8 ounce and I only shoot that much in 12 and 16 gauge guns. When I'm out trying to hit birds with a half-ounce shot charge a bit of choke is appreciated.

Come up here for late season pheasants with that cyl/skeet combo you won't have to worry about birds fit for your table because you won't have any.

Joel:

L. Brown is not too bright, he can't help it. Obviously he doesn't know how to reload and alter loads for short and long range, spreaders, shot, powder, short chambers and all the rest..... basically he's a dense motor mouth who only talks to hear his head rattle.

I took just under 1k scratch phez over years with a Mossberg 500 12 with a cyl choke tube. Later I was able to determine the constriction was, factually, .000. Worked to 25 yds any presentation, out to 35 yds on incomers. Crossers somewhere in the middle.

Most always I used Remington 3 dr #7.5 trap loads. I mention this b/c there is no way to approximate this performance with a subgauge with .000. I tried many different brands. The pattern board tells the story. Mostly, it's about payload and quality of best factory traploads. The rest is efficiency of the larger bore diameter.....I guess.

Have never played with a cyl 16 - maybe that would work. I know my cyl 20 and 28 are not good enough for anything but the 1st week of Oct on WC/grouse. If I use 1 oz B&Ps 20-22 yd shots are a very safe bet. I would never take them out for even planted phez.

However considered as a wordsmith, McIntosh was imprecise. He'd speak of "lightly constricted" as equivalent to "no choke at all" - whatever the heck either of those expressions mean. Well, the difference on paper between 12s with .000 and .005 is greater than the difference between 12s with .025 and .040. I think a 12 with a .005 bbl is very sensible. It's not that I won't get as many birds with a .015 1st bbl. I don't want to burgerize them.

Sam

You are spot on wham you say that the pattern board will tell the story. A 12 bore with open muzzles and properly regulated will throw very even patterns with the right ammo and I have been very surprised by the ranges at which I consistently kill with them.

Hi Monty:

I stumbled on an an old thread about Vena Contracta guns.

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=308530

In that thread Daryl links to a GoogleBooks (old) book that had contemporary performance tests of Vena Contracta guns:

http://books.google.com/books?id=inQCAAA...0gun&f=true

Best,

Mike

Wow. The longer I live, the more I learn. Let's see . . . don't know anything about late season pheasants. Hmmm. Lived in Iowa most of my life, averaged 65 wild roosters per year from 1987-2006 (until Iowa bird numbers crashed). Included plenty of late season birds. One season when winter didn't shut us down early, I bagged 49 from Dec 1- Jan 10 (end of the season). And this Jan, with bird numbers lower than they ever have been in Iowa . . . hunted with one other guy Jan 3, for under 2 hours. Cold, strong wind, not the best weather for surviving roosters to hold. We put up 6 roosters, 2 of which were way out of range. The other 4 . . . all within 25 yards. One ended up folding to a longer shot, but only because my partner didn't kill him with the 1st barrel.

As for not knowing anything about spreaders . . . PA24, you're a real genius for sure. So you shoot nothing more open than mod. Well, yeah you do--if you shoot spreaders through your mod. You're opening the choke without reaming it. Amazing that thought never occurred to you. Choke is most accurately determined by pattern % at 40 yards. Shoot your spreaders at 40 yards, count the holes, then come back here and tell us what choke you were REALLY shooting.

Patterning your barrel/s is the only way to tell how it shoots and what choke it is regardless of what it says on the barrel or measures. Plus if you don't reload it means trying more than one shell manufacture to see which shoots best, and also if you reload to find which is the "right load" for your type of hunting or shooting.

As to patterning, I wonder how many know the correct way to do so.

Then you would really be surprised what you could do with the appropriate amount of choke. I say that tongue-in-cheek, Dig, for I feel certain you already know that. There is nothing magic about cylinder, there is nothing magic about choke. Choke will kill cleanly farther than cylinder, period. If your hunting never requires a shot over 25 yards, go with cylinder. My hunting encompasses a much broader range of distances. Cylinder is very limited in it's usage for me.

SRH

Hey, guys.....please keep it civil. This topic reminds me of a pickup stuck in mud and all the tires are spinning but the truck ain't moving. Time to back off and take a breath, smoke a cigar 'n maybe share a drink.

Thanks for the timely reminder, Joe. My above post has been deleted. Sometimes it just ain't worth it.

SRH

Agree that there is nothing magic about cylinder. And I would not go as far as McIntosh did in his article when he stated that choke was something we could "do without".

But I would have written, with firm conviction, that most UPLAND hunters tend to be overchoked rather than underchoked. I believe that's true for three reasons:

1. Most upland game is shot within cylinder or skeet choke range.

2. Therefore, using the more open chokes gives the shooter greater margin for error, while making it less likely the bird will be badly shot up.

3. Finally, it's sad but true that most hunters can't take advantage of tighter chokes, for the simple reason that they can't hit at ranges where modified or tighter chokes are necessary in order to kill cleanly. But those tighter chokes are quite appropriate for the relatively small minority of hunters who can take advantage of them.

"I guess we should add pet pheasant loads to the tenet of common wisdom that one should not criticize another man's wife or dog."
Michael McIntosh, in the Shotgunner's Notebook department of the Dec/Jan 1997-98 issue of Gun Dog magazine.
An article well worth reading for a more nuanced and balanced view of Mr. McIntosh's position on chokes and loads for game.

A member who I corresponded with over the years who disappeared a few years ago into another life---here or There---used cylinder on birds and clay and had state trophies to prove its efficacy. He was a free spirit, his posts always worth reading. There's also JOC's story of the old California gunner with beater gun who shot better than anyone. Jack measured the barrels---cylinder.

Just a short anecdote that stopped me worrying about choke. About 9 years ago I took delivery of what to me was a lovely O/U, it had interchangeable choke tube and I had put in the IC, IC tubes. I decided to take it to the West London shooting school to check I was OK with it. I am a very average shotgunner (I don´t get the chance to practice too much with two young kids) so I like lessons ! My instructor was a chap called Mickey Rouse. From memory he has been the UK heliz (ZZ´s)champ more than once,and has possibly been European and maybe world champ at the discipline. He can shoot a bit. We went through the usual stands and finished at the high pheasant tower (120 feet, 40yds). He showed me a couple !! Very high and seemed very small. I asked him whether 1/4 choke was enough to reach them. "Mike", he said, "Modern cartridges and IC, to tidy up the pattern will do all you need". He took the shotgun off me and proceeded to break 7 out of 10 of the following high tower clays FROM THE HIP !! This is not to say that George D doesn´t use extra full, he does, but that is extreme shooting and he can do it. I don´t shoot a shotgun at any bird over 45 yards so I have stopped thinking about choke best, Mike

A friend has a pair of McKay Brown OU's. He shoots typical driven birds in the UK (not the ultra-high ones featured at some shoots), and asked David for his advice on chokes. His guns are .010 in both barrels. Quarter choke, I think, is plenty good for normal driven birds. And for far more walked-up opportunities than most people would think.

In his book, Brister tells an interesting story from a dove hunt in Mexico. Another hunter, watching Brister stone birds with his pump, was having trouble hitting well. He remarked to Brister that the tight choke on the gun--it was marked "full"--must be the secret of Brister's success. So Brister loaned the guy the gun, and indeed his shooting improved significantly. Only thing was, Brister had bored out that long-shooting full choke barrel to IC!