doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com What chokes do you prefer? Do you care?

Note that I am in perfect agreement with not reaming out these older guns. I have for instance a very nice 16 ga H grade LAC gun with 28" bbls having full choke in both bbls. While the use I would make of this gun does not call for full chokes, full choked will it remain with loads to compensate.
Another thing I often see recommended is for short range use with a too tight choke is to drop shot size based on a generality that larger sizes of shot often give a slightly higher pattern % than do smaller sizes. This seems totally in reverse to me. #6 shot for instance have 30% more shot per ounce than #5 shot of the same alloy. Changing from #5 shot to #6 shot is not going to reduce the pattern % by 30%, but it will put more total shot in any given circle size.
All of this of course does take a bit of shooting & trying but it is remarkable what can be accomplished if one is willing to work at it a bit.

No, you didn't HAVE to open it up, you CHOSE to.

SRH

What's the crime in opening chokes a little?? I don't get it. I routinely have chokes 'tuned' on competition guns. And I do it on hunting guns too. I want my guns to shoot perfect patterns. I just don't get it. Why is it so important for these guns to have virgin barrels? Some of them don't shoot all that great from the factory and a good barrel man can sometimes do wonders with what otherwise is mediocre or even poor.

On a double, it's hard to beat the combination of IC and IM (1/4 & 3/4) for any upland situation. This would be from 12 to even 20 gauge guns. For a fixed-choke single barrel, modified is the go-to choice.

For my purposes, Stan . . . yes, I HAD to. I have no use for full choke in anything other than maybe the tight barrel of a sxs I'd use for trap or turkeys. And I don't shoot trap all that much, usually 16 yard, where mod works fine. (And I already have a M/F sxs.) And haven't hunted turkeys in quite some time. What sense does one full choke barrel make in a gun used for skeet, sporting clays (recreational variety, nothing particularly long), grouse and woodcock hunting, prairie grouse (mostly early season), and pheasants over some pretty good dogs? Oh yeah . . . and driven birds in Scotland? (Just the "normal" type, not a steady diet of 50 yard + archangels?)

For those that find full choke useful, more power to you. As can be seen from the above, it doesn't make much sense for me.

What sense does it make? Finishing off cripples, for one. Oh, but I forgot. You don't cripple any. Your records prove it.

SRH

As for me, I could care less whether someone reams out every bit of choke in a British gun, or a competition gun. I opened the chokes on my MX-8 from F/F to M/M. No great shakes there, either way. What I hate to see is an American classic that is screwed with, when there are options to opening the pattern without that being done. The old saying is so true, "you can take metal out but you can't put it back".

SRH

Stan; What's so precious about an American SxS vs a British gun? I don't get that part either.

I guess it's just me, buzz. I'm not a wannabe Limey, and I could care less about British guns. I appreciate the workmanship and the quality, but think they are terribly overrated. I own a very nice British side lock game gun, and haven't shot it in 10 years. I enjoy shooting and hunting with original American classics much more.

Ever noticed how few people care if a British gun is exactly the way it left the maker's bench?

SRH

Buzz, you keep saying over and over that YOU DON'T GET IT...........and by your response I would say that you don't get it....LOL.........question: WHY WOULD YOU REMOVE STEEL ON ANY VINTAGE GUN BARREL WHEN YOU CAN ACCOMPLISH THE SAME RESULT WITHOUT BUTCHERING THE GUN, WHY....???????...I don't get that, makes absolutely NO sense at all..............

You mentioned earlier that the factory choke borings weren't all that good, even poor you said.....have you ever considered that you were shooting the wrong loads in those vingtage guns and that you were the problem, not the choke borings......????....

Grind up your new guns, you competition whooptie whoops and all your other stamped out newbees....but why butcher the old ones.........?

And I'm with Stan on the over-rated, over-priced Brit guns.....Italian, German, American, Japanese, French and some Spanish are much better IMHO......BTW, I wouldn't grind them up either....I learned a long time ago that one should match the ammo to the gun and the target, not the other way around............


Best,