doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 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?

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