QUOTE By SAM
""[Regarding use of open/no/almost no chokes (whatever the heck MM meant by that) for everything, there may be a better way to guarantee you will never develop as a SC shooter...but right now I can't think of one. That was one of the most poorly considered pieces any shotgun writer ever put on paper. Using only open chokes is like betting against yourself, encourages such things as shooting twice at the close target, and provides fallacious input to the brain by way of misses on distant targets that were correctly pointed. You can groove and break a 40 yd target with a .005 12 ga often enough to convince yourself it can be done. But this is no way to develop in SC. Of course, to know this last part is true one would need to actually pattern at distance. I suspect MM did not pattern much, if at all. ""}





Sam, Let's clarify this here:
What you wrote above is absurd and I doubt if you even read the article.

McIntosh's article about open chokes was about "upland bird hunting" for the "average gunner". His audience for this was not us on this forum who are so anal as to analyze every minute detail about shotgunning.
Also, the article was not meant for sporting clays, FITASC, or goose pass shooting.
It was meant for the average upland bird hunter. This is the first thing to keep in mind when reading it.

The average guy, not us, probably shoots with too much choke from lore of years ago.
McIntosh's intent was to educate those folks who handicap themselves with too much choke and not enough skill.
It was also an article written to inform the reader of the technological advances of the shotshell.

Nowhere in the article did he ever say to use cylinder for every shotgunning situation!

Here is an example;
I shoot grouse, and quail over a pointing dog with a 28 gauge Arietta that has no choke, Cyl/Cyl.
It does the job with stone dead kills and no choke.
McIntosh also had a 28 gauge bespoke Arietta he had choked Cyl/.007.
I know because he told me. See, he used some choke ordered in his own gun!

When I was thinking of ordering a 16 he recommended to choke it .004 and .010 for it's intended purpose of pheasant and prairie grouse. He didn't advise to have it open bore and he didn't tell me to go full/full either.


Also Fyi, even though my grouse gun is Cyl/Cyl, my sporting clays Perazzi is fixed choked .023/.023.
However, if I could change chokes, I'd put in cylinder for 35 yard full belly in comers and battues. I'm sure that that would be OK with Michael too!

Vernal.


Last edited by Vernal Pike; 07/01/14 07:01 AM.