I don’t know if my experiences will say anything about the different effects of the different chokes. The only bird I can comment on is wild pheasants, and I probably took over a thousand in the over fifty years I’ve hunted them with 28, 20’s and 12 ga’s, starting in the 60’s when I ordered my first shotgun (870) but with a 28” barrel modified-choked barrel, contrary to common wisdom (30” choked full) here in Iowa at the time.
Since that time with the newer screw-in chokes, I have stuck with modified except perhaps late in the season and with double guns I always had IC/IM fixed chokes. Ranges like you say were mostly inside 40 yds with the occasional “barrel-strecher.”
I can’t say I’ve often thought “what if?” on a miss if a different choke would have made a difference, mostly immediately knowing I was behind on that bird or I had no good cheek weld, etc. on that particular shot.
