doublegunshop.com - home Forums Thread Like Summary - Now tight is to tight?

Got to measure up my new acquisition on Saturday. A 1906 Purdey pigeon gun. The chokes measure out at 44th. in each barrel. Is that to tight for today's modern ammo? It's proofed at 1 1/4oz loads. Will it damage the barrels shooting that kind of loads?

I would not touch those chokes. Use the gun as it was intended or send it on to someone else who appreciates it for what it is.

Another aspect for the new owner to consider when he comes to sell it - the nearer to "original" the more desirable will be the gun to a prospective purchaser.

I have some experience of buying and using vintage British wildfowl and pigeon guns. I do not buy guns that have been tinkered with. Bad examples? ---- William Ford chamberless wildfowl guns such as 10G -which were often the equivalent or better performance as an 8G......NEWBIE owner thinks that he can "improve" the gun by re-chambering it to 8G, etc. It never fails to perplex me how some johnnycomelately thinks that he can "improve" a product of a masterful gunmaker and barrel borer such as Ford.

I have a plethora of vintage doubles with that much choke, and more. I love them the way they are. I have opened the chokes on a total of two vintage guns. The first I regret........ happy about the second. The second is a gun dedicated to quail and woodcock, and I decided to open the chokes before I traded for it.

There are spreaders available that will open your patterns sufficiently for many disciplines without removing metal from the muzzles, which cannot be put back.

.044" can be lived with, and used effectively, with proper feeding and usage. Maybe you should not have bought the gun, in the first place, if you knew it had too much choke for what you wanted to use it for. The best time for serious consideration of how much choke one has is before you purchase it, not after.

Try pattern it first see what you got you might be surprised

I have a Baker double with .050 chokes. Walls as thick near, the chokes, as I’ve ever seen. Only game I took with it was pass shooting geese, at ridiculous ranges. They were passing through a hedge row and I had perfect left to right crossing shots at singles and pairs. Once I figured out how far to stretch the leads out it was lights out. Even dropped a couple dove that day cutting across that hedge row. When Eightbore speaks about 60 yards patterns being excellent he is exactly right. Some of those old tightly choked guns had far more capability for long range shooting than I’ll ever get to use.

A friend who loves to shoot10 gauges bought one, an L.C. Smith O grade 32" Best Damascus barrels, Hunter One Trigger and ejectors circa 1910. He shot it a few times and told me he could not shoot it, was missing Sporting Clays targets that he usually gets. So with him he wanted to get rid of it. I told him I was interested because you don't see many 10 gauge guns with those options. When I got the gun I measured the chokes and the constrictions were right barrel .051 and left was .048. I called him and told him and he said no wonder I could not hit with it.
I took it and put a 30" x30" piece of paper with a center circle and use went back 70 yards using my range finder. Pretty impressive pattern. Used another paper at 30 yards and it just blew a big hole in it. I'm figuring that the gun was special ordered for pass shooting ducks/geese.
In an early Hunter Arms Gun Company catalog it stated that they would bore to any choke except extra full. I guess the client got his way.
A little too heavy for me now at 9 lbs. 10.8 ozs. Arthritis is starting in my hands and to try and break open especially fired hulls with the ejectors I would have to break it over my knees which I just had replaced last year, but at least I'm walking better. When I start shooting again I will go to one of my hammer guns that I like. They just about fall open with plenty of room to get the hulls in and out.