doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com To open the chokes or not, that is the question...

Sorry - I'm not suggesting he go to MY preferred chokes - but to my previously mentioned 'normal' game borings of somthing like I.C and 1/2 or 1/4 and 1/2.

I have shot everything from guinea fowl in Africa, walked up woodcock in Wiltshire, decoyed pigeons in Hertfordshire and very high pheasants in north Wales with these chokes and never felt I needed more to kill the birds at good ranges.

Again, just a personal opinion, I think most people are choked more tightly than they need to be for much of their game shooting.

I am in total agreement with Smallbore on this matter, but a couple of caveats for "American" guns. Several makes of US guns used the so called "Taper Chokes" which do not have a paralell section at the muzzle. One of these which has been opened up can be quite readily detected as "Non-Original" so one will need to consider if this will actually be a detriment to it's future value. Also in opening one of these it becomes even more critical that a method is used which insures maintaing alignment with the bore or you may just find it shooting off to a different point of aim.
I realize the gun in the original question here was British, so this would not be applicable to it, but am adding this for others.

Small Bore I agree with your choke selections. My favorite "walked up" is cylinder in the first and 10 in the second.

But I do think I would keep a gun choked as the gun in question as is if the rest of the gun were original.

Best,

Mike

I was under the assumption that British guns originally had the same types of taper chokes making a change in choke detectable, perhaps I am wrong.

Also, would original records, if still available for a particular British gun, show what chokes were original to the gun? Did the high end makers keep this kind of info?

All this talk of "game gun" suitable chokes seems somewhat moot to me. The gun has 30" and 40" barrels! "Game gun" it ain't! (IMO, of course). He didn't mention the weight, but I'll bet it isn't a 6lb 'magic wand'. So, why try to make it one by choking it for such work? If that were the tact, why not chop the barrels down to 26", backbore it to quicken the swing, add a 2 inch long "green worm" to the rib, a much favored middle bead, adjustable comb, aluminum adjustable buttplate with a purple recoil pad, sling swivels ....

So, about chokes...
I once bought a 28" Browning BSS 20g with F/M chokes. I took it out the day I got it at the range and shot 3 rounds of skeet with it. I shot 25 the first and third rounds and a 23 the middle round. Now I don't shoot that many 25s, maybe once a year or so, mainly because I don't shoot much skeet and some because I don't keep my head in the game and start 'playing around'. I also took that gun to a sporting clays shoot and won a buckle for sub-gauge class up at Moore-n-Moore. I shot so well with it that I wanted to use it for hunting as well and thought I should open the chokes to M/IC. I never got around to it.

Later, I bought a BSS 20g 26" gun with M/IC. I now have my poorman's 2 bbl set.

The last couple seasons in SD, I used the F/M 28" gun to take a good share of my total take. I'm sure glad I didn't mess with the chokes, looking back. The 26" gun gets a lot of action on quail and chukar where the shots are close and the hilly country makes a 26" gun much more desireable (for me, with my long arms and average height).

Chuck, respectfully I think that giving us your skeet scores as an argument for a specific choke combination only tells us about your shooting ability. And also, when you shoot three rounds in 73, there is no possibility of comparison, it does not get a lot better if you use skeet chokes.

I remember you telling us of pheasants you shot out at 30 yards (or was it 40) with a .410, so you are clearly a lot better than average shot, to say the least, :-) Any choke combination you use won't make a difference, but to the average Joe I tend to agree completely with Smallbore. Gough Thomas (G.T. Garwood) addresses the choke issue very well in his books with lots of facts and examples and he favors open chokes also.JMTC.

JC

Chuck,

Talk about leaping to extremes:)

As I understand it, the chap thinks his chokes too tight for the purpose he has in mind. Invisibly opening the choke constriction to effect this is hardly akin to wholescale butchery.

2-piper's point about having a competent gunsmith do the jod properly is a good one here and has wider wisdom in relation to work on guns generally.

Ok...maybe it was extreme...guilty. But just to illustrate a point, that it is not likely a game gun and that chokes aren't as much a factor on scores as one might weight as such, especially on clay scores. Over and over we've all seen posts by respected members advocating not putting screw-in chokes in vintage doubles or even modern doubles and opinions from them that chokes (or the matching of them to the task at hand) effect on the outcome of targets or game hunting is highly over rated.

I'm not likely to ever buy this gun and have no issue with him doing so, even though my post may suggest otherwise. If my post was passionate in that direction, it was just my way of emphasizing that he should be well informed before altering a gun, if only for his own peace of mind. Clearly, he didn't have a firm position before he posted, otherwise we'd be hearing of the ventures of his altered gun. I suggest more shooting enjoyment with the gun and less worry about scores or bag count.

Rob;
I may well be wrong, don't have many British guns to check. I was however of the opinion that most British & Continental guns had the so-called conical-parallel chokes & that the taper choke was primarilly an American thing. Greener pictures what he refers to as the "True Choke" as being conical-parallel & Burrard describes the choke in the same manner. He gives lengths of the cone as varying from about ¼" up to 1" with the parallel normally being no longer than 1¼". He further states that both the longest cones & parallels will be found on maximum degrees of choke, with those guns having only a very slight choke also having rather short cones & parallels.
At least one drawing for the L C Smith shows for Full Choke from a .732" bore a cone of 1 9/16" length to a .695" parallel having a length of 1".
Since most choke alterations consist of working only at the immediate muzzle it can be generally assumed a short cone with a long parallel having somewhat less than full choke constriction will indicate an "Aftermarket" choke alteration.
This is not meant to determine the desireabilty of having it done, but simply to state unless the gun is sent to a "Gunmaker" & original type tooling used to open the chokes to original specs then the alteration can generaly be detected by anyone having enough interest to take measurements. I think it most likely not many guns have been altered in the US to original specs. This might be more apt to occur in England.

Thank you Miller for that concise explanation, your word is good enough for me, though having Greener & Burrard in your corner can't hurt.


Thanks, Rob