doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Parker Repo Question

Chuck, I will not argue with your statement, in fact I agree with it. The point I was trying to make is that Larry has insinuated repeatedly, at virtually every opportunity, that 28-ga. Repro M/F chokes, as they came from the factory, are useless. They certainly aren't useless in my case, how about yours?

I hate to jump into the fray, but then again, when have I been accused of being that smart. A close personal friend received a very early 28ga. reproduction from Mr. Skeuse back in the day that was a 26" gun with marked skeet and skeet chokes. (He also had a first year production Browning 'Lightening' 20/28/410 three barrel set that has its 20 gauge barrels bored and marked with cyl and cyl chokes, which is still my go to rain gun to this day) The 28ga. was also 'delivered' with a leather covered recoil pad. Now don't shoot the messenger, but I was there as a gun at the field trial when it was foundled by all and shot for the first time. It could have been done by the Skeuse's/Reagant Chemical's inhouse gunsmith??? Sadly, the box is long gone. I ended up purchasing the gun in the early 90's and soon sold it as it had a straight stock and I am not a big fan for their use out in the grouse woods, too much one handed stuff going on. It had a super low two digit serial as I remember and about the best Turkish looking California walnut that I have seen on a reproduction, in fact it is/was as nice or nicer than the 28" SST 28ga. reproduction that I shoot which came from a well known outdoor writer.

As to M&F in 28 reproductions; mine, with its normal ton of reproduction choke, shoots perfect patterns at 20 yards with Polywad Spred-r's and really nice even patterns at 30 yards when fed Remington Express 7 1/2"s. I have learned to leave my lunch hooks off of tightly choked guns and go searching for a load that works instead. My 28ga. reproduction needs bending down a bit to be as efficient as my DT VHE 28, but I have been afraid to have someone attempt to bend it as the wild grain doesn't layout worth a darn in the grip area. Wouldn't make much difference these days anyway; eyes shot, fingers stiff, and shoulders need rotator cuffs fixed. I still go out to keep the dog in tune, and to answer some sort of ancient call. It must be in my blood. I sure do a lot of bird educating these days, just trying to get a bird or two. Just my two cents worth.

Remember: Life is Good, Treat it With Respect!

I like my 28"/28ga chokes just fine with their unusually heavy constriction. They toss some good patterns, out pretty far, with a 7/8 oz Fiocci Golden Pheasant #5 load and the Rem STS #8 load. I have taken some farm raised chukar and pheasant with it over my Lab. I have no reason to open them up. Maybe if I had a pointy.

Actually, what I have insinuated is that they are OVER-CHOKED. How they work for you is . . . well, how they work for you. And you can certainly open up any tight choke using spreaders. But if M/F 28's were supposed to be choked 019/038, then most manufacturers would choke them similarly. And they don't.

If you eliminate doves from the picture, most 28's you see in the uplands are used for grouse and woodcock, or quail. Shots on those birds tend to be relatively close. More open chokes reduce aiming error, and also keep from turning a gamebird into flying hamburger.

I will add that the Parker Repro 28's are not the only oddballs when it comes to a lot of choke in a 28ga. I recently measured a V. Bernardelli, originally marked IC/IM (4 stars/2 stars--except it looked like someone X'd out one of the 2 stars) that measured .010/.039. The very interesting thing about that gun is that it was one of those that would have fooled you completely had you tried to measure the chokes with one of Galazan's "drop in" gauges. It was significantly overbored (565/569), so the drop-in gauge read it as cyl and about IM. I shot a couple patterns, using standard target loads, at 50 feet--a fairly typical distance for woodcock and early season grouse. The R barrel pattern had a diameter of about 14"; the left about 9". I'd be OK with the R pattern if it were in the L barrel, since that's a 2nd shot deal. The L, however, would be totally useless for my purposes. WAY too tight.

Back when the Repros were being produced, if you were buying a fixed choke gun and wanted open chokes, you pretty much had to take short barrels. (True of guns like the Ithaca SKB and Browning BSS, for example.) If you wanted longer barrels, you got tight chokes--whether you wanted them or not. Today, thanks largely to an overall trend favoring longer barrels, and the writings of now-deceased outdoor scribes like Gene Hill and Michael McIntosh, it's much easier to find long-nosed 28ga sxs--with relatively open chokes. For most people, the longer-barreled guns handle a little better (because 28's are light enough as it is), and the more open chokes help them hit better without reducing close-in birds to nothing but guts and feathers.

My Q1Q2 28ga ia also .004/.008 using hi-quality gauge. Sounds like some were just mis-marked.