doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com What are the true choke sizes?

I have two Parkers in the 1905-7 range. Both were bored .040 within a thousandths of an inch on their left barrels.

I'm suspicious that makers tested and developed chokes for pattern density, then replicated the dimensions for production of guns. It would be interesting to have a survey, comparing a maker's diameter variation for a given choke. The problem with a survey of that sort, of course, is that these guns are the better part of a century old and could very well have been polished out, honed, reamed, etc., so the data would be of little value.

From my little knothole, if someone told me they have a Parker, LC, Fox, etc that had a full choke marked gun that had a measurement that was something outside of what I would expect, I'd be looking for indications that it had been modified.

Regardless of all the banter about pattern density, choke in thousandths of an inch is the only information useful to me when assessing purchasing a used gun. This is because: 1) I wouldn't know what load was used if pattern density was given instead of dimensional choke measurment, 2) it's unlikely I would use only that load or use it at all (we all have our pet loads), 3) the components for that load are probably no longer available if the load was from yesteryear. 4)I'm not so concerned about pellet count as to select say one gun over another, when going into the field to hunt, but rather more along the lines of this gun has tight chokes, this gun has medium chokes, this gun has open chokes, this gun makes me feel good to hunt with, etc., 5) I have a general expectation of performance based on choke dimension that has proven very reliable to me (nobody selling a gun could convince me that their 12g gun with a .025 choke would perform as I would expect a full choke gun to perform on a variety of loads without demonstrating it.

Frankly, I think the industry for production guns has long ago moved to a dimensionally based choke approach. Besides, pattern count is just one way of quantifying tight, tighter, looser.