I shot a Fox Sterlingworth with .040 chokes with steel for quite a while with no damage. A friend still shoots his A Grade Fox with steel, no damage after years of use. Stan's illustration of Worth Mathewson's L.C.Smith mirrors my own experience. Some people just feel they must spend money on expensive shells and expensive choke work, are not happy unless they write the checks. I have been shooting my AYA 10 magnum with steel #2, #4, and BB for years without damage. It has about .043 of choke in both barrels. I also sold a wonderful prewar Model 12 Heavy Duck for $500. A less than near mint Heavy Duck is just a hunting gun, not a collector piece. The AYA and the Model 12 are in the same category: if I damage the chokes with steel, I have the barrels shortened and install Briley chokes. If I don't damage them, which I don't intend to do, I haven't spent a dime on unnessesary barrel work. With modern steel ammunition, there is no need to relieve chokes in a gun with reasonably thick barrel walls. What most posters (except my friendsDon and Markethunter) on this thread do not know is that the barrel on a Heavy Duck is very much thicker than the barrel on a standard Model 12 and should never show any effects from steel shot, whether the choke is relieved or not. By the way, Joe, last summer I found three Federal shells long lost on an island on the Inland Waterway off Bogue Sound in NC. Regardless of my wife's protests, I brought them home. She thinks my ammunition collection is a bit overwhelming already (as in "Enough Already"). I will open them up and see what they look like inside if they are in fact steel shot shells.
