I recently bought a virtually unfired three-inch Charles Daly/Miroku 12 gauge O/U at my local gunshop for a really good price and decided I'd turn it into one of my duck guns. Figured it'd be cheaper and prettier than the Benelli everyone is always trying to get me to buy. The 28-inch barrels are choked full over improved modified right now. Obviously too tight for steel, so I'm debating either having the chokes opened up to I/C and modified or sending it off to have tubes installed (I think there's plenty of wall thickness there).
My question is for all the guys out there who duck hunt with older guns. What has been your experience as to which option you preferred? Any advantages really to one or the other? Having the chokes opened up would, of course, be cheaper, and there's not much that IC and Mod can't sufficiently cover for other bird hunting. I have a Beretta BL-5 12 with Briley thinwalls and quite frankly, I pretty much always keep the IC and Mod tubes in anyway.
On the other hand, I suppose with tubes you have a little more flexibility in playing around with different tubes to see which ones pattern better.
Any thoughts?
