Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Screw-in vs Fixed Chokes

I saw a fellow who was winning about everything he entered in trap and skeet shooting a 12 gauge 1100 with a fixed full choke. He was very good and probably could have done a fair job shooting skeet with a .22 rifle.

I like fixed chokes because I generally use a particular shotgun for a particular activity and because I am always misplacing the choke tubes. I have several shotguns with screw-in chokes that I use mainly for skeet and trap shooting. One in particular fits me quite well and I like being able to change chokes so I can use it more effectively for everything from skeet shooting to turkey hunting.

In games such as skeet where target distance is consistent there certainly is an optimal choke. But then again that could be covered with a fixed choke shotgun.

In sporting clays were presentation distance is constantly changing, constantly changing chokes is a distraction. The losers are most often the ones that change chokes. The winners usually have something tight screwed in and leave it there close or far. The ink balls give them confidence.

In the field 15thousand will cover a lot of work.

I use fixed choke guns, screw-in chokes, and even one with screw-on chokes. For the screw-in guns, I pretty much stick to IC or Mod and don't pay much attention to which it is.

People pretty much expect screw-in chokes on shotguns today, so I think that's what we'll be getting for the most part.

I would say it depends on what you do with your shotgun. I doubt many people who own a Perazzi drag it out in the marsh for early teal season and again to shoot mallards at 10 yards in flooded timber and shoot pheasants or a turkey with it.

A friend has a Kolar. Them's dang expensive style points, right there.

I�m old and soot in my ways. I�ve got 6 shotguns, 3 have fixed chokes and 3 have screw-in chokes. When I prefer the fixed chokes and 2 of the screw-in chokes have never had the original choke removed.

I too have been at this a long time and have the short barreled "winchoke" in a bunch of shotguns. When dove season opens I breakout a Win 101 12ga full/mod 'cause it aint got no misses left in it. It's pure poison on Miss. doves..

It's probably a good idea to remove them to clean and lube even if you don't want to switch constrictions. You'd be surprised how crappy it can get behind there. I suppose they could corrode in place though I don't believe I've heard of that happening.

Yes, it can happen. I've seen strong men not able to remove them and also have seen them destroyed by the wrench tearing off the indents that some have.

If they don't move relatively easily, I'd give them a squirt of Kroll and some contact time.

I've never owned a shotgun with removable choke tubes, and I probably never will. For one thing, I don't like them, or anything about them, including what's been said above about having tubes freeze in the threads, and then destroying the shotgun trying to remove the tubes.
Sporting Clays would be the only reason for having them.
Having different rifles for different hunting scenarios works for me. I don't see any difference between the rifle scenarios and different shotgun scenarios. I'll keep a shotgun for Quail, one for Pheasants, another for Ducks, and another for Squirrels. Each of these shotguns are built for specific hunting, just like rifles are built for Brown Bear, and Groundhogs; these rifles are vastly different.
Trap guns and Skeet guns are different in many respects, in addition the chokes, so I have different shotguns for each sport, and within trap shooting, I use a different shotgun for singles, doubles, and handicap.

DMB

Common sense answer. With pumps and autos an extra barrel with a different choke is relatively inexpensive. The bad part is they have screwed up-pun intended-the o/u and sxs offerings. Hard to find anything new any more that doesn't come with screw in chokes. Combined with the fact that unless you test them with each choke and shell combination you really don't know what your gun is throwing. What is marked on the tube often is not
what shows up in real life.

Another answer to a question that didn't need asking.

Addition: An interesting choke tube story. Friend wanted to borrow my duck gun. He is a great shot, but knows little about shooting minutia other than Ducks require Mod or Full. I knew where he was going he would be shooting decoyed Ducks almost exclusively. I left the IC choke in that I had used previously to hunt the same place. When he picked up the shotgun, he asked what choke it had. I said Mod and he said perfect. When he came back he said that gun just hammers Ducks close or far. I smiled and said glad you enjoyed using it.