doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion German & Austrian Sporting Guns @ doublegunshop.com Why are German drilling chokes Full or IMP Full

There is, of course, another possible explanation. If you rephrase the German phras commonly uttered when someone sneezes- and it means: To you good health- to "Goes-In
Tight", perhaps that's the standard for the choke reamers and hones used by Merkel, Krieghoff, etc-- just a "shot"!!

Another use for the tight chokes on Germanic drillings and combination guns was shooting "auerhahn," or "black game," or "capercaillie" (doubtful spellings...), a HUGE forest grouse that looks a little like a turkey crossed with a blue grouse. Not sure how they are hunted, but I believe it is somewhat like turkey hunting, hence the "turkey" chokes.

Anybody know the status of hunting these in Western Europe? Extinct in places? Protected? I know (from member's pix) that they are still hunted in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.

Endangered in Germany ("red list") and under a hunting ban. Acording to German-language Wikipedia, there are less than a thousand breeding pairs in isolated mountain forests in the Black Forest, Bavarian Wald, and several smaller mountain forest areas.

In the threads memorializing our Russian colleague Geno, there was one showing him with one he took in Russia after an extended stalk, walking forward only when the bird sang its mating song.

Here's an article from a February 1977 Sports Illustrated in which the huntress uses the rifle barrel of a 16 ga/ 7x57 BBF to take one, in Austria. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1092091/index.htm

One would definitely want full choke for the Auerhahn depicted in the article--which I enjoyed BTW--thank you for posting it. I wonder if in the days of fixed chokes, full was used because you can always open it...Steve

You may have something there- back in the day- LC Smith and other of America's premiere double gun makers often bored both barrels Full- for as you so wisely stated, they could be re-bored at the factory to more open choke(s) if the purchaser so requested. Obversely- you'd have an easier time shoving a pound of melted butter up a wildcat's rectum with a red-hot poker than taking a skeet choke and changing it into a Full choke-

Mike one other reason the chokes were very tight was because of the over shot wads typically used in the older guns when these were made. With modern shot shells being loaded in shotcups the patterens will be as tight in a mod choke as the over shot wad shells did in thier day. My 16 ga/ 8X57JR (.318 Dia)cape gun was re=choked to mod, and lengthened the 2 3/4 inch from the short 16 ga used when that cape gun was made in about 1910. Now the shot barrel patterns very well at 35 yds and handles Brenneke slugs perfectly at 100 yds on the rifle sight for the rifle barrel.