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?