doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Fixed chokes were made to open?

Gentlemen , please read my previous post .There is a simple explanation, no conspiracies , nothing complicated . New guns were made with full chokes. They were sold to gun shops. The gun shop sold them to a customer. The customer had the choke bored to his requirement. Simple.

Gunman, that explanation sounds good . . . but it runs afoul of British proof laws and what is marked on the guns. If that were true, ALL barrels on ALL British shotguns would be marked "choke", because they would have passed proof with more than .008 constriction. In fact, a lot of British shotguns are not marked "choke", especially in the right barrel, because that barrel is quite often more open than .008--and was more open than .008 when it was submitted for proof.

I would never guess that Jose's particular gun would have been a gun ordered by a gunshop to sit on the shelf waiting for a customer to purchase it. It's just too ornate and has the look of a custom order to me.

Therefore, my take, from my little knothole, is that the gun was ordered with those chokes by the purchaser. I believe Destry is correct, many people believe the "more is better" theory on choking, even today. Not everybody hunted only birds with a shotgun and tight chokes could be the owners preference to add versatility to hunt mammals as well.

Let's face it folks, Dave Weber's website wasn't around when that gun was made to share shotgun performance information, nor the plastic shot cup, and all the other things mentioned in this thread.

Even today, many many people buying their first shotgun will buy a full choked magnum pump-a-matic.

I wouldn't get too wrapped around the axle as to why this gun is f/f choked. It IS f/f and no amount of debating will yield an ironclad, absolutely irreproachable conclusion as to why.

The following Purdey is finished and offered, complete except for the chokes, which I suggest are stiff and in need of a reamer. If it were sent overseas as a stock item, they are expecting someone to open the chokes to their requirements - no?

Location: Audley House
Trigger: Double
Chokes: As Required
Rib: Game
Case: Leather
Grip: Straight Hand
Barrels: 30" (76 cm)
Chambers: 2.75"(70 mm)
Weight: 6 lbs 2 oz (2.78 kg)
Stock length: 15.25" (387 mm)

Well I guess that's because I'm talking about the 20th century.
Any way why are you so bothered about it "Proof"? You dont have proof law and would not want it .
THe word choke was originally stamped on guns that were recess bored , choked guns were stamped "not for ball". After 1896 the word choke was stamped on barrels ,usually the left if it was choke bored.In those days people bought guns that were bored to what the gun maker decided was correct. Either a driven game gun ,a wildfowler or a general purpose gun ,one barrel for close one barrel for distance.
Later custom made guns were ordered to throw a set pattern at a set distance with a specific cartridge or load.
I dont know when the word choke stopped being stamped and I dont know what was common practice in other countries, but I do know what was going on in the UK particularly after 1950.
Boring chokes has never affected Proof status, I assume that marking guns in the past was to prevent people from blowing the end off their barrels by using ball or solid slug loads.

I'm also talking about the 20th century--slightly more than the first half of it. "Choke" was a required marking on any barrel with more than .008 constriction (and could be stamped on those with as little as .004 constriction, at the maker's request) until the proof laws changed in the mid-1950's. And we are "bothered" about proofs because, thanks to websites like this one and magazines like Double Gun Journal, we Yanks are now sophisticated enough to be able to spot out of proof guns. And while "out of proof" is not always a safety issue, it is nearly always--to anyone knowledgeable buying Brit guns--an economic issue. The price takes a hit if the gun's out of proof.

In the midwest during the late 1940's and early 1950's all of my dad's friends shot pumps or semi-auto's. I don't remember anyone owning/using a SxS. Us kids usually got a single shot (new or used)as our first shotgun anywhere from age 10 to 13. I got a bolt-action Mossberg. Almost ALL of these American shotguns were factory FULL chokes.

Whether through wisdom or ignorance, everyone thought FULL was the ideal choke, and that "it hit harder". We hunted everything with these full-choked shotguns -- geese, ducks, rabbits, and squirrels (only a few quail). Some people ordered their new shotguns with Modified chokes; but they were a very small minority.

At that time, I didn't that know a gunsmith could open a choke, nor did I know of a local gunsmith that had ever done so. I don't remember the topic even being discussed. None of these midwestern small town gunsmiths did it full time, they all had other jobs. Ours was also a rural mailman.

Once in a while you would see an older shotgun with the barrel shortened 3" with a hacksaw, and trimmed with a file. These were mostly used by rabbit or quail hunters.

About the mid-1950's we started seeing a few Polychokes in magazine ads, and on an occasional new shotgun. They slowly gained populaity, but most people I knew kept the adjustments on either Modified, Full, or Extra-Full.

Card shoots were popular at the time. Whoever had a pellet closest to the X, or the most pellets in the tny circle was the winner of the ham, turkey, pie, or cash. Interestingly, these fund-raising shoots were held in the middle of small towns, Sarurday or Sunday afternoons, on the lawn of the post office, VFW, Elks Club, or a church. Two or three bales of straw was considered an adequate backstop. Full chokes were preferred, and the norm. I don't remember the distance, but it was probably 25 yards, or so. No one wore earplugs, and no one owned shooting earmuffs.

In those days, FULL choke dominated.

I think this help explains why we see so many old pump guns with Full chokes. It doesn't really explain why SxS's from an earlier decade were bored F & F. But I don't think there was much after-market choke modification going on prior to the 1970's.

Jerry

W W Greener mentioned this Not for Ball & Choke marking thusly;
Prior to the adoption of choke boring most round balls fired from a shotgun had a close fit to the bore. When choke boring became common this was obviously not a good idea so the proof hoses began marking "Not for Ball" on choke bored bbls to indicate this. They could however be fired in complete safety "IF" the ball was undersized enough to pass easily through the choke. Many shooters however felt that firing any solid ball load would put them in an Out of Proof situation. The decision was thus made to rectify this by changing the mark to read "Choke" rather than "Not for Ball".
In the Modern Shotgun, Burrard indicated it was a rather common practise for British gunmakers to do the final pattern adjustments on a gun "Made to Order" "After" final proof had been done. This could be accomplished by either adjusting the chokes or relieving the forward portion of the bores. As long as the first 9" of bore was not enlarged it apparently did not take them "Out of Proof". My impression was this was done by the gunmakers themselves.
Of course being from the US all I can really say is what I have read from English writers, obviously no such situation existed here.

Whoa!! A whole lot of stuff going on after the initial question that related to a Merkel shotgun. I don't think the chokes on Elsies, pumps etc. are relevant to that issue. I own or have owned a fair number of German guns and a couple of Austrian guns, mostly pre-war but some as late as the 50s and early 60s, and mostly pretty high grade, almost all of which were choked full and fuller. I have to think that even when manufactured, it was contemplated that these guns' chokes would be opened up to meet the customers' needs. There simply were not enough pigeon shooters to want these super full chokes. There is really no question that keeping these guns' chokes in their original super full configration makes a whole lot of sense today, other than for collectors who value mint condition.

I have read hundreds of old gun manufacturers catalogs and advertisements that are full of claims about their guns' features and shooting qualities. I have not seen one catalog or ad that touted having guns with chokes that could be reamed out at home.

Old ads from L. C. Smith, Parker, Lefever. Ithaca, etc brag about how their guns shooter harder, reach out further, take game at longer ranges, etc., but I have yet to see one that says, "Our new guns have extra tight choke boring so you can now spend more money to open it up to suit your needs"

Could some of you who keep perpetrating this myth that barrels were meant by the manufacturer to be reamed or honed please show us some proof?