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?

Not if they are low pressure lead.

I have an Italian gun with 47 luscious points of choke, proving, perhaps, it isn’t just Americans that believe more is better. It is mostly useless, as is. To me, anyway.

Best,
Ted

Open them up to something useful.

I saw an interesting article in Shooting sportsman not too long ago about opening up chokes. The technique utilized was for the customer to send a flat of desired shells to the gunsmith who would, in turn, shoot, pattern, and ream the choke to the desired number of pellets average in the target circle For the given flat of shells. That sounds expensive, but you might want to try that sometime!

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.

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.

Better yet cut a couple of inches off at the muzzle, that should solve your problem😁

All kidding aside…SKB’s advice is pretty sound

All best,

CJ

Interesting two questions. My view, while the gun is proofed for 1 1/4 both you and the gun will be much more comfortable shooting 1 oz or even 7/8 oz loads at 1200 fps. That load will break most every clay and kill most birds except wildfowl.
I doubt you are planning to use this old Purdey for your everyday sporting clays rounds so why not leave it as is and use it accordingly. I say this while at the same time I am using a 1937 J Dickson boclock for clays and it is choked .020 and .031 and would be better at .010 and .020

Try spreaders and see how it patterns.

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

Do you reload? I shoot 1 oz and 7/8 oz in my old guns. Kills both clays and doves fine. If it were mine I’d leave the chokes alone. Pictures?

Did you buy your new Purdey at the Southern? I saw a couple of Purdey pigeons there, but did not make a deal. How does the bore diameter compare with the proof marks? .044 sounds like the barrels may have been honed a bit.

Although I do not expect to shoot many flyers or Helice with it as there are not any places close by here in central N.C. I would like to maintain the gun as a pigeon gun. I hope to maybe at times use it as it was built for. So shooting 1 1/4 OZ of shot through a 44th choked barrel may result in damage to the gun.
Is that assumption correct? I did shoot it this past weekend with a 1250/1oz Clever and it turned the clays to dust.

Bores are 735 /737. Barrels are still pretty thick as I remember. Yes I did get it at the Southern. A pigeon gun has been on my list for awhile. But we will see how long it stays in the safe.

.044 choke is ridiculous, 99% of the time, especially with modern loads. The 1% of the time it might be useful if you’re in the habit of shooting 70 yard ducks or Turkeys & coyotes from across the field…and even that’s dependent on if the gun patterns good with the loads you’re using. It may have worked just fine with fiber wads, etc, but in my experience, those extra full constrictions aren’t worth a crap with modem loads. Most of my experience with guns with copious amounts of choke is mostly limited to older American, German, Italian & Spanish made guns. I’ve owned a few German & Spanish guns with tight bores that were .040+ with choke and almost all of them threw blown patterns with modern(plastic wad) ammunition. Pattern the gun as suggested with the loads you’ll be using and throw in a few loads that you won’t be using just for comparison. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’ll throw gorgeous patterns. Im thinking it’ll be one or two things, patterns the size of a small fist or totally blown, both equally worthless.

Obviously I’m in a different camp when it comes to adjusting chokes on a shotgun. Im all for it. If you have a gun with original chokes that don’t do what they were intended to do because of technology changes in ammunition etc, then all you have is an original gun that shoots shitty patterns that finds its way to the back of the safe or cabinet because you don’t like how it performs. What’s the point in that. Make it right so it does what it needs to do efficiently so you, the owner, can enjoy the gun.

How would the barrel be damaged by loads it was built to shoot? I understand loads contemporary to the gun used fiber wads but modern plastic wads shouldn’t make any difference, should they?

If your bores are .735/.737 then your constriction of .044 leaves the chokes at .691/.693. To me that reads normal full chokes. I don't see an issue. Pattern your gun to see where its at as others have suggested.

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 steel patterning plate of my own for checking regulation and patterns with my guns. I own numerous guns that have original constrictions tighter than .040", and every one of them patterns nicely ........... with the loads I use in them. Actually, I've never found a load that delivers blown patterns out of them. I tend to stay under 1200 fps, if possible, but not always........ BOSS bismuth loads pattern beautifully out of my L C Smith 3E and my A H Fox HE, both of which have chokes in mid-to-upper 40 thousandths range. When you kill six big ducks with six shells, and .048" choke, a couple of them long shots, your patterns can't be that bad.

Those ducks certainly didn't think so!

A friend has a Holland Royal pigeon gun choked FxF. I have not shot it on game but it is amazing how far out you can turn a clay to dust. Quite satisfying as well.

Full choke has its place, hard to beat on going away late season roosters at a distance is my experience.

Like Stan, I have had many overchoked guns, all of which threw excellent, tight patterns. One, a Fox Sterlingworth with .042 or .044 chokes, threw great 60 yard patterns with my 1200 fps 1 1/4 ounce loads of lead #4s over Herco and Winchester W114 wads. The Fox is gone, but I still have part of a box of those shells. I still have those 60 yard patterns in my collection. On another subject, a 1910 Purdey with 2 3/4" chambers was not made to shoot 1 1/4 ounce loads at 1250 fps. You should be happy with loads that go 1175 to 1200. Pigeons are only 35 or 40 yards away and the difference between 1175 fps and 1250 fps at those ranges will make little difference to the pigeon.

Where there's choke there's hope

William Bruette, in Guncraft: Guns, Ammunition, Wing & Trap Shooting, 1912 listed 2 heavy loads; note in a 2 1/2" case.
Pressure at the muzzle would be < 1000 psi

Curtis & Harvey’s (42 gr. = 3 Dram) Amberite
12g 2 1/2” case 47 gr. (3 1/3 Dram) 1 1/4 oz. shot = 11,480 psi by Burrard's conversion

Curtis & Harvey’s Smokeless Diamond (33 gr. = 3 Dram)
12g 2 1/2” case 39 gr. (3 1/2 Dram) 1 3/16 oz. = 11,984 psi

1 1/4 oz. 3 1/4 Dr. Eq. = 1220 fps
1 1/4 oz. 3 1/2 Dr. Eq. = 1275 fps

Please do share the pattern results!

I didn't count the 60 yard patterns, but a duck or pheasant couldn't get through it with fewer than a killing amount of shot. It truly looked like a 40 yard pattern.

The only other gun I've seen shoot as good a big shot pattern was my old AYA lightweight Matador, shooting 1 3/4 ounces of steel #2. I have finished flying cripples at 90 or 100 yards with the Matador and uninjured mallards at 80 yards. That gun is also gone.

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.

I foolishly sold the Fox to a friend who drilled it out and gave it to his son. Live and learn. My next project may be to shoot some of those great #4 lead loads in a Super Fox.

No way to use those 4s on ducks (legally), like we should be able to, but you can still call in crows and use them on 'em legally. I can tell you from personal experience that, while some espouse much smaller shot for crows, 4s will take them down at some "ridiculous" distances, and close in too.

I just measured a 20 gauge single shot choke and it is around .040 constriction. I thought I might turkey hunt with it so I wanted to point of impact test it. I used 2&3/4 inch 1 ounce, 2.75 dram, and 7/8 ounce 2.5 dram 6s just to see where it hit. I was surprised to find either load put to 5 to 6 pellets in the kill zone at 30 yards!

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.

28 gauge Parker Repros with full chokes are normally choked .039 or close to that. Every full choke 28 gauge Repro has been bored that constriction. I have not patterned one, but someone here may have. Please report in if you have.