doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Choke in a Bird Gun

I've got two Cyl barrels and have owned others, both factory and one that was cut 3", and like them a lot. I'm not sure how much practical experience Ron Forsyth has had, but he writes as if it's a lot. He's got a few entries in a 1992 collection of articles from Handloader Magazine and in discussing Cylinder mentions that most of the factory versions actually had some measure of constriction. Otherwise they could not manage 40% patterns attributed to Cylinder at 40 yards, and specifically wrote "It is worth mentioning here that a genuine cylinder bore, with two parallel walls the entire length of the barrel, will generally shoot in the region of 30 percent;" . I'm not sure of the time frame he discussed but in the cases of Mcintosh and LB they are talking of pure .000 out the muzzle and that is what I've found in my barrels of Winchester manufacture. If you wiggle the gauge at exit, the barrel of my M97 can show .001" but I haven't been able to find that with the left barrel of my M21. I consider them straight enough and they work fine for their uses: gunning at AKC pointing dog hunt tests, the dove opener, rabbit hunting at the end of the season and bird hunting in general.

I patterned that cut barrel of .000" at 30 yards using reloads with 1oz of hard 7's and found it to be within 1% of the results I got with an IC barrel of .005" constriction. Most would call that constriction Skeet, and the patterns were 60/61%. I liked it then and like it now.

The Forsyth article was actually about 1/4 choke. He made the point that he was talking about 55% patterns, not what was marked on a barrel or how many .000" it had. I've got a Model 12 16ga with a barrel marked Mod, it measures .009" (half of what would be considered Mod) and has worked very well for me on pheasants and pigeons when shooting for retriever guys who want the birds dropped a ways off. I'm curious to see what it's patterning with the shells I use in it.

Enjoyed the article, Larry, noticed it did not register on the PDJ forum.

kgb

WS1 and WS2 are what does it for me. Lord Ripon's Purdeys were always full and XF, but those were always driven birds

A member who corresponded with me before he disappeared to make this board a poorer place told me he used Cylinder for everything, including competitions with the medals to prove it.

Coyotes kill and eat every red fox they can catch. When they move into an area the red fox population is soon decimated. Why wouldn't wolves do the same to them? Only reason coyotes don't wipe out grey foxes is that greys can climb trees, reds can't.

SRH

Not sure about Ripon's, but Lord Walsingham's Purdeys were cylinder

The Field Oct. 20, 1888 �A Shoot On The Moor� by Thomas de Grey Walsingham

On August 30, when I killed 1,070 grouse to my own gun in the day, I shot with four breechloaders. No. 1, a gun made in 1866 by Purdey, subsequently converted from pin-fire to central principle, to which new barrels were made last year. Nos. 2 and 3, a pair of central fire breechloaders, made also by Purdey, about 1870, for which I have likewise had new barrels. No. 4, a new gun made by Purdey this year to match the two mentioned above, but with Whitworth steel instead of Damascus barrels. The guns are all 12 bore, with cylinder 30 in. barrels, not choked. My cartridges...contained 3 1/8 drs. Hall's Field B powder to 1 1/8 ozs. No 5 Derby shot...

I saw something on the coyotes of the north eastern U.S. and Canada where they said the wolves had interbred with coyotes and created a sort of super coyote with very agressive behavior and heavier frame. Anyone see anything on this?

Chuck, I don't know how true that is, wolves will kill coyotes and eat them withut battng their eyebrows. I have heard of cydogs, domestic dogs and coyotes.

"If you are "ON", the extra choke constriction doesn't hurt a thing."

Jerry you hit the nail on the head.
When I was younger most of my shotguns were 26" imp.cyl and mod. Did hunt mostly woodcock, quail, and released pheasants over dogs, and some wild pheasnts also. Never had a problem using the short barrel with the above mentioned game.

I have hunted in Germany while in the service in the late 60's and killed 10 lb hares stone dead with a .410 Rem. 11-48 25" barrels imp.cyl., Hungarian Partridge and some Mallards, and Cinammon Teal. Used it here to kill quail, grouse, woodcock and released pheasants. Shot skeet with it and at the time never shot a 12 ga. for hunting or sheet, used only the .410, Winchester 101 20 ga. and 28 ga. Beretta Bl-4. Scores weren't that much different between them.

My go to gun for released chuckers and pheasants over dogs is either a 16 ga. L.C. Smith hammer gun with 28" barrels with .020 and .025 chokes or my favorite, and don't squeal on me Dr. Drew, is a 16 ga. FN with 30" barrels wilth .016 and .024 chokes. Weighs 6 lbs. 1.8 ozs.

I ain't tellin', but he don't look too happy about the FN

Chuck

I remember reading an article from a couple years ago in Field & Stream(?) regarding a cross between the red wolf and eastern coyote. I couldn't find it online but here's one from 1992 http://books.google.com/books?id=atNDlmZ...ed=0CBwQ6AEwAQ#

I don't know how much validity there is to the idea. I do know that the few coyotes I come across each season appear to be rather large. Three years ago, one of the guys in our camp shot a large male coyote that weighed 63lbs on the camp scale. Many of the sporting goods stores in the northern tier of the state hold coyote contests. Every year I've seen results for those, there are always several in the 60+ lb range.

Cheers
Marcus