doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Full/Full chokes

I've got to agree. Many vintage guns marked "Full" have way to much constriction (for good patterns)in my opinion.

My favorite choke combo for western upland birds is .013/.025 (lm/f). I wouldn't dream of going chukar or hun hunting without a full choke in one barrel, no more than I would dream of going grouse or quail hunting with anything tighter than modified.

I've patterned many a doublegun with "very Full" chokes on my grease plate. I've never seen where, with good quality shot, full chokes hurt patterns. I've got doubles that are choked as much as .048", and they pattern beautifully. Competitors in "card shoots", where they compete to put as many pellets in a turkey target's head and neck as possible, use constrictions as tight as .640". From .729" to .640" is .089" constriction. With extreme amounts of constriction, the smaller the shot size the better, AFA patterns go. Anyway, no full choke vintage doublegun ever made has anywhere near that constriction, and the point is that competitive shooters wouldn't use a choke that ruined their patterns, when they're trying to win.

I love tight chokes for appropriate situations. They make you a much better shooter. One of my favorite dove guns is a 32" barreled 16 ga. LCS with Full and Full chokes. My hit averages with it are just as high as when I try to use a more open choked gun. And, the distances it kills doves dishrag dead deny that there's any pattern problems.

JMO, BOE, SRH

Stan, not everybody has your sight line concentration and trigger pull. I could fly fish...or use a grenade....the latter for me would be more effective. I've always wanted a SxS M-79 shooting flechettes.

Gene, I found out that tight chokes make you a better shooter by accident. I went from shooting a screw choked O/U, at registered sporting, to a fixed M and M choked O/U. There are many, many presentations that do not need a M choke to break the birds in competitive sporting. When I started shooting the M and M fixed chokes I was an A class shooter, and had plateaued in my attempt to gain Master class rating. I quickly punched up through AA to M with the tighter chokes. I shoot regularly with my buds who all change chokes "according to the situation", basically trying to use the most open choke they can get by with. For me, this introduces negative thoughts. If I do that I'm really saying to myself "I probably can't hit this bird every time with a M choke, so I'm going to put in a S (Skeet) choke constriction to cover my bases". Negative thoughts, and those thoughts are super-important, in competing or in hunting.

If you do a search on Shotgunworld about this you'll find many others who have found the same thing to be true for them.

Best, SRH

BTW, what's the bore size on that M79, 'bout 0 gauge?

It's a golf thing Stanley...I totally understand it.

By the way, I've asked Kirby Hoyt to try to find the "pair" to my 16 ga Reilly 27853 (which has all the attributes of a "bantam" "pigeon gun" including weight - for a 16 bore). My 16 bore is choked open and 1/2 and we speculated at the time that the chokes were opened-up. Terry Buffum's 12 bore SN 27854 with all the same characteristics, flat rib, weight, fences, etc...is choked full and full.

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M-79 is 40mm - that's about 1.6 inches (1.57 caliber?) (obviously no chokes)....haven't clue how that would translate into "gauge".

Stanton, not Stanley.

Terry is a hunter, a waterfowler, AIR. Many of "us" (waterfowlers) who shoot vintage guns favor tighter chokes. Not all, but many.

SRH

My bad, I was thinking about Terry Lubzinski. Wish he would post more.

SRH

It depends on the percentage of targets you are willing to lose due to a thin pattern that will not break ALL the targets statistically.

A statistical certainty of a 100% score on long handicap trap targets didn't exist until the shot wrapper combined with hard shot made it's appearance.

Experiments show that 70% patterns at the plane of the target are required to assure the target breaks.

As you observe, a percentage (even a high percentage) of long-ish distance targets will be broken with more open chokes. They just won't ALL be broken, and this of course is what a serious competitive shooter requires.

What he said.

SRH

Argo it would probably easier to put a stock under a couple M-203's