I shot many times with the late "Uncle Robert" Brister at sporting clays. I don't know of anyone else who constantly experimented with shotguns, chokes, shells, etc. more than Bob. His success at skeet, trap, sporting clays, and live pigeons on the highest competitive levels meant he was someone I would listen to regarding shotguns and shooting. He once told me that under 40 yards cylinder bore was deadly and 40 yards and beyond you might as well have full choke. A deadly colombaire shooter, Bob once used a Remington 3200 trap gun with the lower barrel cut off 4" in front of the forearm...cylinder for the first shot and full for the second. My lifelong shooting buddy has that gun now. I have an English hammer gun with 30" .724 bore barrels that are not choked. Doves and clay targets are hammered at ranges out to 35 or more yards with 7/8 oz. 1100 fps. light loads. Unless I am pass shooting ducks, geese or sandhill cranes, open chokes of IC or less is what I use even in 28 ga. Once I had the pleasure of shooting and talking guns with a noted British sporting clays champion and asked him how often he changed chokes during a tournament in his O/U....he admitted he had let the chokes rust in and couldn't get them out; they were both IC. Targets out to 50 yards were smoked with those IC chokes. Like Uncle Robert said, "You're either on 'em or you ain't"
