doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Cylinder chokes,are they any good?

Miller, "cylinder choke" is like "handling marks" (which should really be "mishandling marks"). Or "false sideplates". I really like what Cogswell & Harrison calls those: "ornamental strengthening plates".

Following the development of choke boring, English gun makers produced the vast majority of their SxS game guns intended for sale "off the rack"; full choke in the left barrel and cylinder in the right".Customers always had the option of opening up the left choke to suit their personal preference.In my experience, most were left as produced.The reasons for which have been clearly explained in earlier posts. We should not overlook the fact that Victorian and Edwardian, big shots, such as Lord Walsingham and the Marquess of Ripon, used nothing but cylinder bore guns. This fact may well have influenced makers and sportsmen of the era into wide acceptance of guns bored cylinder in at least one barrel.

As Roy said:

From Experts on Guns and Shooting
George Teasdale Teasdale-Buckell
Sampson Low, Marston & Co. 1900
http://books.google.com/books?id=4xRmHkr...ns+and+Shooting

"Possibly the most remarkable measured feat with the shot-gun ever recorded was that which Lord Walsingham was so kind as to send to us in 1887. The performance was two rights and two lefts at wild duck in full feather. The measured distances were all over eighty yards and ran up to 112 yards...with...3 1/4 dr. Hall's 'Field B', 1 1/8 oz No. 5 Derby shot, 12b cylinder Purdey (not choked.)"

RevDocDrew, you just gotta stop reading those Super Hero comic books!! ;-)

Walsingham preferred cylinder bored guns - but remember these were properly regulated Purdeys that would have been patterened carefully before being released for use, not just straight tubes. Ripon had a pair of Purdeys re-barrelled in 1909 with Whitworth steel and extra full choke in all barrels. He used these where they were needed but also kept and used more open choked guns.

I find very few guns which actually measure as true 'Cylinder' bores. Most have at least 3 points of choke, unless someone has lapped the pits out and forgotten to stop when he gets to the choke section!

I use a gun wit 3 points of choke in one barrel and seven in the other with good results for all my game shooting, including what most would consider 'tall' pheasants.

Hello Dig,

Pardon my ignorance, but how can you regulate a cylinder? Either it is or it ain't.
Or am I missing something important here?

JC(AL)

One thing this all tells me, the admitted cheapskate, is that the next time I find an otherwise good double that has been cut off some, I won't reject it out of hand for having no choke. There might be plenty of other reasons to pass (like the altered balance, or a fouled up rib), but for me that one's gone. (I just might not mention that to the seller, however....).

Actually, I shoot cylinder a lot, since the "open" barrel of three of my doubles is cylinder bore, and that's the one that sees most of the shooting. Works well with steel, too (in guns that are otherwise qualified).

A cylinder bore is one with a muzzle that is exactly the same ans the bore - except before Greener perfected and standardised choke, barrel borers polished and fiddled with the internals at the pattern plate until they shot een patterns. Modern choke is amore scientific process but the old boys made their guns shoot effective patterns 'by hook or by crook' well before 1868.

So it relates to fine tuning the internal surface?

JC

Drew, you're ignoring the fact that those are BRITISH yards, not AMERICAN yards.:)