The German shot barrels were always choked tighter than American shot barrels! My favorite firearms are the German made Cape guns with a rifle barrel on one side and a shot barrel on the other! These rifles Ive been told were made for the settlers on the cape of South Africa. The original reason for the super tight chokes on German made shotgun barrels has already been answered here, in addition to the hares, and foxes black forest wolves, and large swans were targets that required longer range and tighter chokes as well. In the Cape guns the rifle barrels were usually at least 8X57JR shooting 196 gr softs and solids @ 2450 fps for the larger game in Africa, and the reason for the FULL, and MOD FULL being that the Breneke slug worked best in the full, while long range shot worked best in the Mod Full which is tighter!
One of my Cape guns is a H. Barella, S/S cape gun with a 16 ga shot barrel on the left, and a 8X57JR rifle barrel on the right. The shot barrel was choked Mod Full and with modern shot cup shells was way too tight for slugs, and you had to wait for a Blue Quail get out to about 45 yards before easy hits could be made! I had my smith open the shot choke to and American modified choke. The shot barrel then was a real upland barrel, and was deadly on Doves and Quail, while the rifle barrel placed the 196 gr rifle bullet right on the sights at 100 yes, the shot barrel would place a Brenneke slug right beside the rifle also at 100 yds, while printing a very dense 30 pattern of No7 dove loads, or No6 duck shot perfectly out to 35 yds. This little side lock hammer cape gun has made some well-placed shots on Mule Deer, whitetail, Elk, out to 250 yds and black bear over bait with both rifle and Breneke slugs. Wild hog dont have a chance with this little cape gun in my hands!
