doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com OT-- What is the best choke.......

You're going to try walking up pheasants on a preserve? No dog? I grew up hunting pheasants dogless in Iowa when we had a lot of them. Mostly hunted road ditches, which is legal there. But preserves tend to have too much good cover for dogless walk up to be effective. If I were you, assuming the preserve offers the services of a guide and a dog, I'd spend the extra bucks.

Two opposing view points. I think it was Michael McIntosh that said with modern ammo choke is much less important and needed, something like that. A more formal research results ( forgive my aging memory I can't remember the source) showed Mod was the best all around in that it covered the widest spectrum of likely shots considering pattern and penetration. I used 1 oz of 6's in both light 12 game guns and 20 ga SxS's on wild pheasants in S Dakota, hunting behind labs.

🙂

I have recently discovered, in shooting sporting clays, that I score more hits with light Mod. (.015") tubes in both barrels, at all range targets from 20-55 yards, than any other choke combo. That being said, I shoot a Kolar shotgun, which has .740" oversized bores, and the forcing cones are minimal, which I'm sure evens out the patterns. I ask my fellow shooters, especially the ones who hit targets consistently, and they almost all shoot IC/Mod fixed chokes, or light Mod as I do. The sole exception is one fellow who shoots a Zoli O/U 12 that has .027" fixed chokes top & bottom, and crushes targets at all distances up to 60 yards out. My ability is such that I probably couldn't break anything with his gun. Don't know if this helps you at all, but there it is. Sandlapper

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Couple things…

I haven’t handled a 12 gauge model 21 that I’d call “svelte” or, something similar. 15 minutes is a pretty short hunt to be worn out on. Might be time to begin a conditioning program to keep you out there. And, yea, birds are where you find them. I’ve noticed they seem to like hanging out in the farmers petunia bed, especially if it is close to his front door.

The real heavy cover is what the dog is for.

I’m really, really hoping we get some serious cold to freeze up the cat tail slews in a few weeks, and that the hopeless Minnesota Vikings start winning ball games. Both of these will help insure that I have some prime real estate to myself in December. There was a time I’d put snow shoes on if we got a bunch of snow, but, something about hunting pheasants for five decades has changed inside me, and I don’t want a pheasant that bad anymore.

Keep at it. At least you saw a bird and got some fresh air.

Best,
Ted

I've had very good success on pheasants either with 16's shooting the standard 1 1/8 oz loads of 6's (or 5's later in the season, in the tight barrel.) I've also used Brit 12s quite a bit. I have some Kent Gamebore Pure Gold 1 1/16 oz loads of Brit 6's that I like in open chokes (less than .010). Pellet count is essentially the same as 1 1/4 oz US 6s. I have a good recipe for low pressure 1 1/8 oz loads of US 6 shot in Brit guns choked more like mod in the tight barrel. Seems to pattern quite well. It will kill reliably as far as I want to shoot. I don't often need nontox because I'm not hunting where it's required. But if I do, I have 12ga 2 1/2" tungsten matrix in both Brit 5's and 6's.

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Nothing more gaudy than a mature rooster in the sunlight. I do love hunting them for that.

As for food, you know they can live on a lot of things other than soy and corn, so don't be surprised to see them in lots of other habitats. They do love cover however, so the walking is often tough. It gets easier the more often you go.

Gus and I will be going this afternoon. We will be using 1 1/4 oz of copper plated lead or the same amount of #5 Bismuth, depending on where we go. I expect we will come how with one or two. Gonna be good either way.

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