Isn't the answer affected to some degree by what you are shooting - 1 1/8 oz from a 12 ga provides a lot more pattern density for a Cyl choke than a 3/4 oz from 28 ga.
Anybody making their way through Sporting Shotgun Performance by Dr. AC Jones? Being neither a statistician nor an inveterate pattern tester, I am finding it heavy going at times but it seems to challenge some widely held beliefs about what happens after the trigger is pulled. In Chap. 16, the author looks at optimal chokes for skeet. His tests for pattern diameters for Cyl, Skeet and IC chokes at 23 yards indicate that the average pattern diameter for Cyl choke is only 2" wider than Skeet (ie only 1" on each side). The variation in diameters for the Cyl and Skeet patterns used for the average was 4" - in other words, in some instances the Cyl choke threw a pattern that was tighter than the Skeet choke and in some instances the skeet choke threw patterns that were more open than the Cyl pattern. This would suggest that, shot to shot, the difference between Cyl and Skeet chokes at 23 yards is not meaningful.
He also concludes that when balancing the need for wider patterns for close targets (17 yards) with the need for downrange pattern density for the longer shots (27 yards) the skeet choke is the best compromise.
