doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Open choke, useful?

If I was told I had a choice of a cylinder or a full choked gun and it was going to be the only gun I could shoot for a year, I would take cylinder.

Just the way I shoot. I rarely need more that I,C, for anything, including ducks. I don't shoot many 45 yard shots and I suspect that most 45 yard shotgun shots are a lot like a most 500 yard groundhog shots. I have a 200 yard meadow that has a bench rest and a berm that I often leave a SR1 200 yard high power rife target in. Folks ask me how long it is and I ask them to guess. I have had guesses as high as 600 yards. I don't put much stock in paced off shotgun shots either, where a bird lands is not how far it was when you shot it.

The way I shoot full is only good for turkey hunting.

Best, Dick

Cyl/cyl would be my choice for grouse and ducks over decoys. Anything flying up to 30-35 yards. In the little alder holes or openings, a centred M/F will blow them apart.

Ducks over 'coys is Cyl/Mod good.
My first ducker was a gamegun.
Perfect for speeding bullets like the Blue-Winged Teal.

My favourite game gun (one of many, many guns I have owned and used over the years)is a hammer gun with 30" Damascus barrels.

The right barrel has 7 points of choke and the left has 3 points of choke.

I find it totally effective for all game shooting situations.

What I would suggest is that you pattern your gun with a variety of cartridges so you can see what you are actually getting out of it.

I'm an advocate of open bores.

My 1950's Browning A5 has a factory 26" CYLINDER barrel with a solid rib. I've used very succesfully for all upland birds as well as skeet and sporting clays.

I also have a 1911 A.H. Fox with 29" barrels that are now CYL and IC. It has proven itself on many birds, both live and clay. I used it on doves this weekend with steel 6's (non-tox requirement).

With modern plastic cup shotshells, many of the CYLINDER bores really shoot like IC.

JERRY

While I thought cyl choke useful, I admit some surprize has to how useful you have experienced it to be! Sporting clays, ducks over decoys! I am thinking that choke constriction may have been some trend prior to the advent of "magnum" rifles and 3&1/2" shotshells? The old timers who took hacksaws to their shotguns appear to be wiser men than many may have thought? I make particular note of Jerry's post: using steel shot in his older gun. I replied to another post that Remington permits steel in their economy doubles if cyl/ic is used, though the tubes are not rated for steel. Perhaps this is some answer to the the future use of our classic guns if notox shot becomes the standard we must use? I know the PA Game Commission has begun a lead clean up at its ranges across this state and their so strapped for cash paying salaries and buying 4x4s to ride around in they may want to eliminate that cleanup cost soon?

I enjoy this replies immensely! Very informative!

Kurt

Do not confuse a gun bored as 'Cylinder' with one which has beeen chopped off to shorten it. the old barrel borers would regulate 'Cylinder gus to shoot and pattern properly. Hacsawing two inches of the end is not going to improve anything.

For maybe a decade or so, I used cylinder bore guns with loads that clearly patterned true cylinder or 1/4 choke. Highly effective, although some of those loads were heavier than I am currently willing to shoot in lighter guns I now use.

In recent years, I have used scatter loads in right barrel of tight choked old hammer doubles for ducks over decoys -- really great, with full or fuller patterning loads in left barrel.

For desert quail, I want at least a true 1/2 choke pattern in right barrel and full or more in left barrel.

Now that I am old and slower and slower, and like light guns more and more, I shoot tight patterning, light loads in both barrels for nearly everything (save decoying ducks). By the time I get all lined up for killing shot, tight pattern is plenty wide.

Niklas

"If" it is a "True Cylinder" then it has the same dia from cone to muzzle. Standard practise I believe allowed .003" muzzle constriction before it was no longer considered cylinder. There is of course always "Jug Choking" but then is no longer a cylinder bore. There would seem to be little regulating which could be done & the bbl still be a "Cylinder".

In testing my guns, I got 20-50+% patterns from bores that had no measurable choke constriction, and no jug choking, depending on the ammo used. Last I knew, "true cylinder" patterns were considered to be 35-40% of shot pellets in 30 inch diameter circle at 40 yards.

Big difference in usefulness in field of 20% vs 50% patterns.

My scatter loads, using SpreadR disks, in my guns range from 30% to 45% at 30 yards, depending mostly on shotsize, with #5 and #6 giving the tighter patterns. With #6 Bi-Sn shots, 7/8 or even 3/4 oz scatter loads have been deadly on decoying ducks at 20-35 yards.

Niklas