doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Cylinder Choke - Your Thoughts

"Straights at skeet would be pretty rare if they involved many single pellet breaks, since we know that it's not at all unusual for a single pellet hit to result in a miss."

They are rare, if we are talking about ISSF (Olympic) Skeet that starts with gun down, an unpredictable launch due to delay from 0 to 3 seconds, and initial target speed of 120 kmh, and a max load of 24 grams of No 9 European shot.

Dr Jones is an Englishman and most likely this is the Skeet he knows. There is no American type skeet outside the USA and Canada.

As for the statistical analysis of 2500 patterns, they covered a LOT more than single pellet hits on clays. He is the thrid successive serious researcher ( a professional research scientist by profession) who strongly indicates the Gaussian nature of patterns regardless of degree of choke. This is his most important contribution and if it was understood it would solve many of the non problems occupying shooters' time. To put it another way, it would be better to shoot more and agonize less.

If time permits, play around with this program on Dr. Jones' website. It shows how random patterns can be, but it also is an excellent tool for figuring what pattern performance you need to optimize your chances at various size targets.

Pattern Optimizer

All I know is that I had a 12 ga 311 Stevens back 30 years ago, that was cut down to 24", and I soldered in .008" shim stock and ground a taper in the left barrel. I swear I killed more pheasants with the rt cyl choke barrel, even one that I thought I was 2 ft behind, as it went behind a cedar tree. Paid $25 for it, with a cracked stock. Left barrel patterned mod choke. Deadly, but ugly. Put a stock on from Herters--wait that was 45 years ago.

I have killed more game with cylinder bored guns than with anything else over the years. That includes spur wing geese at the big end and button quail at the small. I prefer it for hunting.

Could you please explain why this is so?

Go out and shoot a round of trap with full and then switch to cylinder.There's a difference on some of the wide birdes and maybe it's because I'm a poor shot but there's a difference. I hunt with vintage guns ,cylinder bores and pass on the far bird.

I bagged my 1st gobbler of the year Saturday afternoon with an 1870s W. and C. Scott & Son 10ga with original cylinder barrels. I called him in close though...Geo

Could you please explain your question? No offense, but, I touched on several points.

Best,
Ted

I thought it was pretty straightforward. Why does a cylinder .729 bore pattern differently than a cylinder .719? It is my understanding that the degree of constriction rather than the bore size (within limits) is the determining factor of choke. I would appreciate others' thoughts on this as well.

An English maker once made a bore that started out at 12 bore (.729) and tapered at a constant rate to a 20 bore (.619) It threw cylinder patterns. It is the constriction in the last few inches of the barrels that does the choking.