McIntosh was not the only writer who thought highly of cylinder bore. Bob Brister had very positive comments to make about "no choke" as well, although he also touted the value of a whole lot of choke for long shots. But if you're hunting upland birds and you're only average to slightly better with a scattergun, cylinder isn't a bad choice. It should pattern 70% at 25 yards (same as full at 40 yards), and with some work at the pattern board and proper shell selection, you can certainly make cyl work out to 30 yards. I'm talking bird hunting here, not sporting clays or trap. Most people simply aren't good enough, or even close, that they should be taking 40+ yard shots at birds. They'll be very lucky to deliver a killing shot at that distance. In fact, the best thing would probably be a miss, because all too often a few feathers get pulled and the bird keeps flying.
It's harder to get the necessary experience hunting wild birds these days because of declining populations, but if people spent a fraction of the amount of time with a decent dog learning how to hunt upland birds, they'd find that they'd seldom need 40 yard shooting skills. Most of the time, 30 will get the job done.
Totally agree, Larry. I would bet a fair bit that the vast majority of shot and recovered birds are taken at 30 yards or less, probably more like 20.
I don't understand the focus on 40-50 yard shots when almost nobody can make such shots with any consistency in the field. And even if a guy can stone a pheasant at 50 yards, I hope he's got a good dog to dig it out of the cattails.
For the 90+% of the population without both the skills to hit 50 yard shots and the dogs to recover them (I count myself part of this population), using open chokes and getting close to the birds sounds like decent advice.
