Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns Chokes????

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.