Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns Chokes????

This comment on a previous thread made me interested in the campfire shotgunners thoughts on chokes.

I'm referring to flying game and targets, where most kills happen 40 yards and in. And a 40 yard actual kill on birds is more rare than many want to admit. Consistent kills even more so. The Turkey gang who wants to kill them at 60 yards is for another discussion.

From 1980-2000 I was an active crow hunter. Making all day hunts 50-90 days/year. Started with a Win Mdl50 mod. choke. When the hammer broke on it I retired it and bought two Rem.1100s. Experimented with various choke tubes and finally settled on the SKII. Using reloads with 1 1/4 onc. #6(sometimes#5 or #4) at nominal velocity 1220fps. If I could get an open shot in timber out to 50 yards (sometimes more) I'd try and was often successful.

Hunting buddy would shake his head and laugh when he passed a shot he felt was too far for his Win 101(full and mod) and I took the shot and made it.

I would suspect you had a great Dog?

My buddy had a black lab that loved to go with us. My buddy couldn't get off work as often as I so I often hunted alone.

There is a significant difference between often successful and consistently successful. There is a difference between stoned dead and crippled dead. However, your vote for sk II at 50 yards is noted.

You never know what a shotgun is doing until you pattern it.

Agree, but for conversation can we say it is doing what the choke is designed to be doing. No doubt, there will be some IC’s that print full. Either they were miss marked or the inside barrel diameter is off. For discussion, if you are getting Mod patterns, then you are using a Mod. Irregardless of what the choke says.

I would also say the good clay shooters instinctively know what the choke is throwing. The know the difference by observing how the clay is either smashed or weakly broken at a given distance.

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.

George,

My personal opinion is that Modified is the crown jewel of chokes for all around field use.

[quote=battue]There is a significant difference between often successful and consistently successful. There is a difference between stoned dead and crippled dead. However, your vote for sk II at 50 yards is noted.[/quote

Note first that I'm speaking of nongame birds. Crows, black birds , and cow birds. I call often successful as 50%, consistently at 70%. My opinion. There are no cripples on crows. Any bird that hits the ground if no dead from shot will be dead from the hawks, foxes, or coyotes within minutes as they also respond to the caller.

Games birds are different. I still use SKII. I use 7 1/2s, 7s when I could find them, for small birds (quail and dove). 8s lose penetration quickly beyond 30 yards. If I had laser ranging vision I would limit my shots on game birds to an absolute 40 yards.

I suspect you also have a great Dog.

We disagree. Crows may be one of the smartest animals we kill and deserve us to kill them as quickly as possible. I feel the same regarding anything I decide to pull the trigger on.

Re Dogs, I have an OK one. I’ve had and seen great. He has potential, but probably will never have the contacts to realize all of it.

In regard to patterning I admit to not doing it regularly even though I’ve often read about it even back in my youth (Bob Brister?). The exception being the different turkey loads. I’m a snap-shooter on pheasants, kind of like the instinctive shooter with traditional archery, and grew up with no formal mentoring or training.

If one is consistently and exasperatingly missing and goes through all the aspects of shooting — stance, eye-dominance, gun-fit, cheek-weld, choke use — in an attempt to sort out the problem, it makes sense then to me to pattern that gun with the appropriate loads also.

It' okay that we disagree. My feeling are based on the fact that my son became seriously ill with histoplasmosis after picking a single crow feather while we were squirrel hunting.

I think most people choose too much choke and too large a shot size, and would be more successful if they went down in both. Anticipating and gearing up for long shots that Fred Nimrod can't realistically make anyway, means that Ol' Fred misses more of the close shots he had a realistic chance to make in the first place. That's my experience.

BK, I agree. my ratio went way up when I switched from mod. to SKII at all ranges.

A friend bought a new 12 gauge 2 years ago put the modified choke in and went hunting partridge, sharp tail grouse and pheasant. About half way through the season he wasn't hitting anything and went back to his old gun and started hitting again. He brought it to my pattern board. That modified choke wasn't even throwing a cylinder pattern.

A couple of thoughts here: no matter the choke, a #6 shot will fly the same distance no matter the gauge from which it originated incl the 410, assuming reasonably close muzzle velocities and no shot deformation. So while someone may drop a bird at 65 yds “right there”, one is much more apt to miss or drop him a mile away with one shot in his guts. All other things about equal, the gauges distinguish themselves by the max range they produce a lethal pattern which of course becomes shorter with each step down in ga. from the 12 gauge assuming standard upland loads, say of 2 3/4”. This might be compensated somewhat in the smaller gauges by dropping “up” in shot size; i.e, 7 1/2’s in a 20 instead of 6’s used in the 12.

And I agree, I may go “down” in shot size but up in payload in a 12 on late season pheasants depending but usually stick with 6’s in my 20. I will take the denser pattern in a 20 over fewer but larger shot and maybe a little more ratty pattern. I’m speaking exclusively for pheasants. I don’t have empirical evidence for this tendency but it makes some sense anyway.

I alluded to the the NW Iowa pheasant culture in the 60’s and 70’s which held to a 12 gauge, full choke barrel, and #4 shot. for pheasants. On probably 90% of the shots all of this was counterproductive or a disadvantage. However one thing to remember too is shotshell evolution and the great improvements that have taken place. I wonder in today’s shells if 1 ounce of 7 1/2’s out of a 20 might not have beat an 1 1/4 oz load in an old 12ga paper shell without an enclosing shot cup and an over-the-top round wad going through a full choke.

Like the mono- bullets in big game cartridges have done, today’s shotshells may have lifted each gauge’s effectiveness to the level of the one’s above it fifty years ago.

I tend to agree with you George on all counts. My experience being almost completely limited to pheasants and prairie grouse. Although I do truthfully claim to have shot a double on my first two ruffed grouse ever.

I've said this before and will say it again here, #4's on pheasants are generally much more dangerous to the others in Fred's party than they are to the pheasants. Ol' Fred can't shoot well enough to put the #4's to use at the ranges they become necessary.

Interesting topic Battue. If I could only have one choke it would be IM.

Grouse and Woodcock back East LM #7-1/2 1-1/8oz and 1oz

Sea Ducks IM #2 1-1/2oz Bismouth

Puddle ducks and Divers LM & IM #4 1-1/4oz Bismouth

Western Grouse, Chukar, Pheasant Wild LM #6 1-1/8oz

Preserve birds LM #7-1/2 1-1/8oz

Sporting Clays and FITASC IM #7-1/2 1oz

If I shot a double gun it would be LM/IM But you know I love my Benelli M1 Super 90's! So LM and IM get changed depending on the birds.

When I go hunt Snowcock it will be F #4 1-1/8oz

That is interesting. Skeet II is between Modified and IC, isn't it?

Skeet two is between skeet and IC

The Skeet two choke I have is .008

If I remember right I had an old Briley Skeet two that was .012 so possible to be greater then IC as well.

From Bruce Buck:

"Skeet 1 is roughly equivalent to today’s standard skeet choke. In a 12 gauge gun it is often .005″ constriction. It’s supposed to deliver the optimal pattern of #9s at 21 yards. Skeet 2 is about equivalent to today’s Light Modified 12 gauge choke and often has a constriction of .015″. That’s in between Improved Cylinder and Modified as they are measured in the US."

I knew we would gravitate to constriction this and that. 😃

Here is where I’m at. As the Brits would say, “modeefied and modeefied.” I could live with it from from Ruffed Grouse to Doves to Pheasants to Ducks and Geese.

When I get the chance, I’ll past some pics of IC, Mod and IM on a pattern board at 20 yards. I know there will only be inches of variation in width and the old theme of “chokes give us inches, but we most often miss in feet” will be obvious. Meant to do it tomorrow, but life got in the way. Most don’t realize there is little difference between open and tight at the ranges most game is killed. And that is inside 20 yards. Yet tight gives you a center cushion when things get outside 30. Where open chokes are coming apart.

Tighter is better when it comes to the game fields. Less fringe means less cripples, and if one perfectly centers a Gamebird up close with IC you still get hamburger. I’ve shot a lot of game from close to out a bit and seldom have I blown one up at close range with Mod, while I still have a decent pattern to work with at distance.

At 20 Yards and under it really is not going to make much difference. I remember Anthony set this target I think for the Master Cup. It was right in front of you maybe and I mean maybe 10 yards. Guys were unscrewing chokes to either shoot threads or a spreader. It really didn't matter what choke you used. The shot never really had the time to open up. From what I saw at that station most either smoked it or missed very little of anything else.

We often see these pictures of a game bird with an excellent pattern and a circle superimposed on it. It gives us a mental picture that is kind of unrealistic Let’s say the 1” column of compacted shot in the shotshell has now stretched to 6-8’ long at 40 yds. That perfectly centered bird on a 90* crossing shot has a whole bunch of shot that has passed in front and a bunch behind but some of “the center” caught him. Not all the shot on that patterning board arrives at the same time.

Of course the shot string conundrum is most applicable on the 90* crossing shot and is diminished in effect as the angle decreases. This shot string thing is exaggerated with the longer (magnum loads) the shotshell in that particular gauge. We might arbitrarily say the 3/4 oz 28 load (the great “square” load), the 1 oz 20, and the 1 1/4 oz 12 ga load might be roughly equivalent though the latter two might quite be as good as that of the 28.

I have witnessed pheasants flushing in a loose flock, at the outer ranges and headed for thick cover to my left, dropping the first, missing the next bird close to it, but dropping a bird “far” to the right with that shot. I remember being momentarily surprised. That bird in this anecdote must have been hit by the very end of that shot string.

I think it’s intuitive that the tighter the choke the longer the shot string with the same shotshell.

George,
Re shot string: The more open chokes have less shot in the center core and more on the outside edges that are not drafting. Thus they are more effected by air resistance and fall behind quickly making for a longer shotstring with the more open chokes. Most of the shot with a tight choke are drafting tight in a cluster.

Ash’s patterns prove the same. The open chokes GTH quicker because they are more affected by wind and fall behind.

However, some knowledge experts say pattern width is more important than stringing. Again that is basically what is shown in Ash’s circles.

I havent done a bunch of pattern testing, but the little I have done, the extended tubes seem to throw a more consistent pattern than a flush tube of the same constriction. I think it may be that the more gradual taper causes less shot distortion. Thats all I can figure.

Modified is what I use 90% in a single barrel and in an O/U, I prefer LM/M for 90%. Talking feathers here, not clay.

Re shotstring: he mentions he tries to have the Bird fly into the shotstring instead of trying to put the shot onto the Bird. Most of us try to put shot into the Bird. There is a difference.

Good info and video. Can always learn something.

Well, he mentions he uses tight chokes and has a long shotstring. Something that doesn't make sense to me, but he is George Digweed....


Now, the Birds in the first video are close because of the particular situation, but he is still using tight chokes. How about some far Birds with the same chokes....He uses a fixed choke shotgun and, as mentioned it is identical to his competition shotgun.

I can say with certainty that the right choke paired with the right shot size can give a clear advantage when hunting waterfowl. A tight choke paired with #2s can really bring them down. Killing them dead is a whole nother matter. Even a well hit duck within 30/40 yards can still be very much alive when they hit the water. Many that are taken down from high above require a follow up shot. If their head pops up after they hit the water, they get a follow up shot. When they are flying a bit high, I like a long range Patternmaster along with #2s. When they are within the decoy spread, I like #3s or 4s and a short range choke. My Patternmaster chokes don't list the chokes as full, mod, imp cyl etc. My guess is a Patternmaster long range is about the equivalent of a typical modified. Extra long range would be an improved modified. We love the days when we have the short range chokes in. It typically means they are decoyng in. All this opinion is relative to hunting flooded timber.

Regarding Skeet II choke and where it falls on the spectrum- both camps are correct. Up to the 1950s or early 60s many skeet guns had Skeet constrictions between .000" and .004" with Skeet II around .008". Now, just how often this was the actual case is open to conjecture as today's tolerance for a given constriction falls in the +/-.003" range. That would make it very possible for the Skeet choke to be tighter than Skeet II in some cases. In fact, I have seen several Winchester Model 21 skeet guns with the left barrel more open than the right which was passed off as the purchaser's preference. That may be so but would need to see documentation to believe that.

Later, there was less negative stigma toward breaking targets past the center mark and the desire for a tighter choke came into being. As few guns had Skeet II and those who did have that constriction often had little idea what it was, the Skeet II designation was moved between IC and Mod. This I have seen in ads for Poly-choke devices from the early 70s and with the early Winchoke system which came into being in the 60s if I remember correctly.

This is how I see this conundrum based on my sources and memory. Depending on the era one references (including modern choke manufacturers and not just us here) Skeet II could be on either side of IC. General opinion currently has Skeet II on the tight side of IC but that is not written in stone.

For pheasants and ducks, I'll take more choke over less every time. It's easy to hit birds close in with anything, much harder to hit birds with adequate pellet numbers at distance with an open choke.

You should also split your shot types and sizes for a more detailed choke answer. If I am shooting a Duck crossing at 40 yards with Steel shot. I want a Full pattern with 3" 1400fps 1 1/4oz Steel #1. In my Wingmaster 12ga this happens with an extended .705" Choke. The markings on the choke say Imp Mod, The actual on paper pellet counts at 40 yards give Extra full patterns. With the same choke in barrel I can switch to 2 3/4" 1 1/8oz of #3 steel at 1400fps and get a true Modified pattern at 40 yards. When I am hunting with lead shot. It is time for the factory imp Cyl choke. Except for the rare pigeon shoot. The Full.

I use Light Modified for ducks with #2 or #3 steel, doves #8 lead, and pheasants #6 lead.

What if, all in the same day, the first one is crossing at 40, the second flaring at 30 and the third has feet down settling in at 20?

Use something middle of the road.

Which is why I pretty much stay with Mod and forget the rest.

My choke and shot will kill all of those if I do my job.

That is the correct plan....Do it all with one combo....

Me too. Again, I remember the days of paper shotshells without the sophisticated shot cup/wad but instead with an over-the-top round wad (even before the ubiquitous star crimps), soft lead shot, and full chokes and 30” barrels. I have no empirical data but I would bet that across the board, the combo’s of today’s 26” barrels, a mod choke, and todays’ shotshells will easily beat that combo of yesteryear at the 40 yd patterning board most of the time.

Here's is my opinion based on pheasants (not ducks): even at the tail end of the season where a 40-45 yard bird, having run the previous 30 yards, gets up into the wind with afterburners glowing, the next bird holds until he busts up 3 yards behind you. Nobody I know changes chokes during the day according to perceived conditions. A M choke fits the best compromise of the three (IC, M, and F) most get with a new gun.

I prefer a SK2 or LM and small shot if forced to stick with a do all combo. But I’m not terribly convinced that choke is as important as most guys make it out to be. Gun fit and good shells are much more important IMO than all the fiddling I see some guys do with chokes.

I mostly shoot a Mod in my Browning Lightweight Double Auto, no tubes available back in the 50’s and it throws nice even patterns that actually are more or less Mod, depending on ammunition. But I have other fixed choke guns ranging from Cyl to Full that I rotate through and I don’t find that I kill any more or any less birds with any of them. Most of my shooting being doves and wild pheasants these days. But back when I was shooting a couple hundred ducks a year I still preferred small shot for everything but pass shooting, in the dekes or jump shooting would have me shooting way less cripples on the water than my buddies who shot 2s and BBs.

Of course the Browning is magic, it’s almost like the stock was built for me and I broke 99 out of the first 100 shots I put through it from the 16 yard line the day I bought it. But that’s why I’m not convinced choke is that important. If your gun fits you’re going to center birds and if you’re centering them you’re killing them.

Last winter’s pilgrimage to SD had me killing roosters with the Browning and my AL48 20ga. I used 1oz load of 7 1/2s in the 20 and 1 1/4 oz loads of 6s in the 12. Hunted 3 days and killed birds from 7 feet to the 40 yard line and couldn’t find any real difference in the killing power or ranging ability of either gun or load. I killed my 9 birds with 13 shots with one runner that I had to ground sluice after knocking him down on a straight overhead shot while blocking. Of the 9 probably 3 were inside 10 yards, one or two out around 40, and the rest. being in the middle.

"...When I get the chance, I’ll past some pics of IC, Mod and IM on a pattern board at 20 yards. I know there will only be inches of variation in width and the old theme of “chokes give us inches, but we most often miss in feet” will be obvious..."

Look fwd to that. A guy can learn something about shotgunning on this thread. I want to be that guy!

My preference is Skeet II for ducks over decoys. IC for doves and quail. In a double gun I prefer IC and IM but can work with IC and Mod.
The only use I have for a full is spring turkey.

It's hard to beat a modified 60 % pattern for all around upland and waterfowl hunting in my opinion. I use cylinder for sparrows and #9 shot in the farm yard. I use extra full and #6 shot for wild pigeons. The pattern board is the shot gunners best friend. More game in the bag and fewer cripples.

Interesting view points. I have more than a few shotguns that are older with fixed full chokes from the "full choke era" I still enjoy using them. Mostly in the field I choose modified on any gun with choke tubes. I find that using shells with no plastic shot protection for the first shot gives me a more open pattern and the follow up shots with shells that feature power piston / AA type wads for a tighter pattern. In other words change your load instead of the choke. Works for me, not everything falls stone cold dead that is why I have a dog. I have the luxury and ability to make any kind of load I think I'll need and to work with whatever choke that is in the gun I'm using. While that is important to me I fully realize not everybody thinks or values the same. I use 6's on upland birds early in the seasons before they are full plumaged ,full bodied ,and have put on the fat layer. Then I go to 5's, I clean enough birds to know when my shells are working like I want them too and when they aren't. When I find shot balled up in feathers and fat without chest cavity penetration, I move to larger shot. Where I hunt 11/1 is about that time, till season closes.
I've shot enough patterns to understand that at best they are still a 2 dimensional representation of a 3 dimensional event. So I shoot clay pigeons trap and skeet year round. A perfect time after time gun mount will kill more birds than the perfect choke selection will any day. Just my thoughts on it. MB

Approximately 20yards-long steps-from the patterning board. Chokes give us inches in width, but we most often miss in feet.

Dead nuts center a Bird and you get ground meat with all. However, the tight two, will give you a cushion when the distance moves out. Less junk on the fringe also means you will cripple less closer.

As Bob mentioned above, a pattern can be deceiving in that a Bird normally will not be hit with all of the hot center, in that it is passing thru a longer string than represented in the 2 dimensional plate pattern.

Addition: This is a top tier shot shell, a Fiocchi 1oz, Little Rhino, 7.5's that I suspect will pattern tighter than most factory upland loadings

IC: Call it almost a 14 inch spread.





LM: 12.5 inches.




Mod: 11.5inches.

Ran across this shooting today. May be of interest to others....Clays but it applies to Gamebirds also.



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"...As Bob mentioned above, a pattern can be deceiving in that a Bird normally will not be hit with all of the hot center, in that it is passing thru a longer string than represented in the 2 dimensional plate pattern..."

now you guys got me thinking. trying to visualize the actual dynamics of a shot string or "cloud" and how a flying bird (or clay) passes into it, and possibly intercepting a shot or two or three, once in a while!

Different chokes will have similar diameters up close, but more or less shot in the core. Out to about 35 yards, LM does as well as Full. A simple answer to all things wingshooting is screw in an extended LM and get on with your life.

I'm thinking it better be a really fast bird for the horizontal aspect of a shot string to really matter.

I think I read years ago that at 40 yards the average shot string is about 6 feet long.

Yeah, long. But a perfectly broadside bird at 30-something mph is only going to pass through a few inches of that horizontally. Angling birds catch less of it, and the closer the range the faster that bird better be.

Digweed gave a hint in that one video. He lets the target run into the shot string rather than trying to put the shot onto the target. The good guys know exactly what a shot string looks like and they work it.

One of the videos shows the shot string fairly well. (Around 7:24 on the long range pigeon video) Often when things are right one can see it flash in the sky. Shoot skeet at night under the lights and it is easily seen.

Digweed headshoots crossers at 70 yards. HE might maybe be able to take advantage of a 4" window and bits of a second as the target goes through the pattern, but then he is more than a bit of an extraordinary shot.

The kid on the magazine cover can also. Extraordinary comes from dedicated instruction usually starting at an early age, structured practice and more trigger pulls than most of us can imagine.

He ain't a kid anymore!

No argument there.

Well, last time I ran into him he called me Uncle Harry. Which makes it hard for me not to think of him as a kid. Unfortunately....🙄

It is only because he is running an English Cocker that I didn’t take offense. 👍