doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Chokes and Choke Information

I believe that he is reffering to the shooting of game birds by the average shooter ie. if you need a lot of choke you should not be shooting at the bird. He uses 05 and 15 in his hunting guns, I have read.

I myself am not a great long range shooter and when I do hit one at great distance I have a hard time finding it. I seem to be more successful on quail when I avoid doubles and concentrate on one bird from shot to retrieve.

If one is hunting upland game birds in the East I cannot see much need for any choke especially on planted birds and if you hunting blue quail in New Mexico, you are not going to find very many of them if you need a full choke to hit them.

As for clays you can do pretty will with IC on any of the standard clay target games even 16 yard trap.

I enjoy MMc's writing as he makes us feel as if we are there in Scotland shooting drven grouse wearing the fancy vestige and possessing the required accutrements for that pursuit. We all read more for entertainment than information.

When choke boring came into common usage, most went overboard & "Full" was considered the "All Purpose" choke by many. As time went by most began to understand that for the vast majority of upland game hunting full was more of a handicap than asset. So now we have the pendulum swinging the opposite direction with the claims that "Any" choke is a "Great Handicap". One of the most sucesful guns I ever carried afield for upland game was a 28" bbl'd 12ga with .010" (¼ choke) in both bbls. I would certainly never put a reamer to these chokes based on MM or anyone elses condemnation of "The Choke". So Very Many Many Times one opposite extreme is equally as wrong as the other.

We writers make our living by taking surprising or controversial spins on popular, commonplace subjects - usually with a weasel word or so slipped in, to avoid being totally wrong. That's how one sells magazines 'new' articles on well-worn subjects like choke.

MM's statement on chokes being "all but obsolete" is simply meant to get readers buzzing - as it is obviously doing on this board. Nice 'gotcha', Michael!

Actually, it wasn't 40 yds. MM wrote about guns (some were 20s) with "little or no choke" breaking crossing targets at "a hair over fifty yards" (Shotguns and Shooting, pg 121). My trap shooting buddy related something he was told in a lesson with Kay Ohye: a skeet choke gives a 4" reliable pattern at 36 yds. This assumes 1.125 oz best quality traploads are used. Even allowing for target presentation, who do you believe?

And MM hates the .410. My full choke M-42 with 11/16 oz #7.5s in 3" shells gives a 14" reliable core at 40 yds. Works on clays, too. Even so, such things are stunts in my hands. I sure as heck am not going to pretend that I can take phez (or targets) at 40 or 50 yds with a 12 ga cyl or skeet barrel.

Sam

Hearsay from Kay Ohye notwithstanding, I believe none of it. 'Reliable' means a pattern without holes. This is possible only with fine shot, and then only at a distance that will provide sufficient target saturation to assure a kill.

Skeet chokes provide this at skeet distances. Trap chokes likewise at trap distances. Stretching the distance results in holes. Holes lead to loss of 'reliability'.

Not to say a cylinder choke can't and won't break targets and/or kill birds at longer distances. It can... sometimes. Likewise a full choke is fully reliable at closer distances if you hit the target with the core. Good luck.

No mystery here, as proven by Oberfell and Thompson in the 1950's. 'Patchiness' they called it... and it's just as true today.

Shotgunning results depend largly on chance if the distance and/or load are not ideal. There are exceptional shooters who can apply a full choke on everything out to the limit of the equipment, but there are none, repeat, none, who can reliably kill targets with a skeet choke past the distance where holes appear in the pattern. This is because you will not score on even a centered target if one of the holes happens to be in the center of the pattern, and there is a statistical certainty of that very thing happening some of the time.

That choke chart shows that I shoot a modified in .410 skeet!

Out of faulty memory here, but most of field shots are done at around 25yds, and
for that distance cylinder choke is more than enough.

JC

Shotgun Jones has hit on the very reason that there is no standard choke in Sporting Clays. Those world class shots are gambling that there is more chance of missing a clay because of a hole in the pattern than because of a small pattern. Those of us not in that league are more interested in hitting most of the easy ones and not worry so much about holes in patterns! As a B class shooter(I probably should be a D). I use a 10 & 15.

Anyone shoot some difficult modern sporting clays courses lately? Battues and minis at 40 plus yards going like blazes? I'll take that Perazzi over there with .24 and .41 barrels thanks.

I have read since I was a kid that the "average" shooter is better off with little choke. Nothing new there. And, they have been using "modern" plastic one piece wads since I was a kid and I'm 56 now. This is just McIntosh writing controversial stuff with "authority" as he is want to do.

The "average" shooters I have hunted with in the field on wild birds who can't hit a shot past 25 yards don't get much game. Their limits are usually filled out by their buddies who can shoot.

Plan accordingly. Jake

It only takes a very limited increase in pattern dia at 25yds to make a pattern totally useless at 40yds. A bbl producing true 50/55% 40 yds patterns can be generally depended upon to that distance or slightly further with good shot-size to game selections. The "So-Called" handicaps at the shorter ranges in comparsion with a true cyl bore are mostly non-existant. With the slight choke one has a much more versitile gun though, MM Notwithstanding.