I think I became aware of fine double guns, reading Michael McIntosh in the early 1990's. Even then, steel shot was a concern.
Over the years since then, I've garnered from my reading the Double Gun Journal and the Shooting Sportsman, that steel shot and choke tubes are for the lower grades of firearms, and that truly fine guns only shoot lead or soft lead substitutes, and they never have any choke tubes, unless perhaps thin wall tubes added by Briley.
Are these prejudices still accurate? Do new side by side "best guns" come with choke tubes, proofed for steel shot, today?
The reason I ask, is that in America today, to shoot ducks and geese requires nontoxic shot, and almost all public hunting lands are requiring nontoxic shot, and the entire State of California, for hunting. The handwriting is on the wall, for target shooters and hunters on private lands, that someday nontoxic shot will be mandated by law.
And, I see seven dollars a box "cheap steel" loads. If those loads ever drop below the price of lead "promo loads", the lead loads will not be long available, at every big box store and gun shop.
There are many substitutes for lead shot, but only one seems to be economical to shoot a lot of shells, and that's steel shot.
And at the gun shows, the lower grades of old fixed choke shotguns are selling for less and less, every year. Like it or not, new shotgun users like and demand choke tubes.
Are the finest shotguns made on the earth, adapting to using steel shot, and the addition of choke tubes?
