doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Benefit of FULL choke

'It lengthens your reach, but may lighten your bag.' According to Garwood it's an ole' Hampshire proverb.

Keep it as is and you may get good price for it by next fall.

I recommend Don Zutz's "Ducks Unlimited Guide to Shotgunning" (Published by Ducks Unlimited) as a good source for information, field results, opinion on full choke, steel, chokes, ballistics.

Good book. I also like Shotgun Sports Magazine Shotgun Stuff and Modern Waterfowl Guns & Gunning by Don Zutz.

Except for quail or grouse hunting, I have always preferred full choke if I couldn't get fullER. For years I had guns backbored and fitted with screw in chokes and lengthened forcing cones and hand loaded nickel plated shot; looking for the tightest long range pattern I could get. As long as you don't try to kill ducks at 20 yards with it, I do not think it is a handicap at all, but an advantage.
I have never been able to call every duck in close, or set decoys to fool every duck. You can't make them come closer than they want to, but letting them get a little farther away just takes a little patience.
I used a full 20 for doves with wonderful success. Part of everyone's favorite set up is confidence, and I just know what I have confidence in.

I have hunted for many years with double guns. (Mostly O/U if I tell the truth.) I have always loved the combination IC/F. You don't find it much in a factory gun. Especially with double triggers, when you have your choice on the shoulder, an IC/F is a great tool. The nice easy shots don't get blown up and the really fun long ones have the necessary punch. Jake

I've always liked Brister on the subject of choke--and he was both a pretty fair shot and a proponent of full, for really long-range shooting in the hands of those who can make use of it:

"Full choke is a demanding mistress; improved cylinder a forgiving friend."

The most advantageous use of full choke is when you carry both normal loads and spreader loads. You then have the best of both worlds with the simple movement of shifting shells. The X-Wad spreadrs make my full chokes pattern more like IC. The NID 4E I have been shooting recently has the following options with normal and spreader loads: (right to left barrel) Mod-Full, IC-Full, Mod-IC, and IC-IC. That is all the range in choke I need - I have only to pick correctly for the kill point.

Rocketman, I hope you have your loads color coded or something. I carry left barrel loads in my L pocket, right barrel loads in my R pocket--and that's more confusion than most people want to deal with.

No confusion. I use WWAA hulls for spreaders, and STS hulls for 'standard' loads. Simple as red and green.

You could of course use something like the silly Nitro-27 gold hulls for your nickel plated and buffered super duper thumpers if you wanted to...

The all yellow 20ga does present a small problem, you do have to look closer to see which shell is which...