Damascus chokes

[Cold Spring]

I have sets of full-tapered choke reamers and tooling for 12-16-20g and have opened many chokes on damascus, twist and steel barreled guns using a drive rod from the breech end. Almost all of them done for myself and just a few for close friends. Sorry readers, I don't do commission work. My favorite combo is Light Mod and I-Mod. IME damascus and twist barrels are easiest to ream, with Parker steel next in line, then Ithaca and LC Smith steel, and AH Fox tubes are generally the hardest as regards ease of reaming the factory choke tapers forward. If that's what you want, I don't see any reason for not opening chokes on composite barrels that are otherwise in good shape with no heavy pitting and with sufficient barrel wall thickness as measured at the the choke leades. Alternately, good spreaders can be used for the relatively few shots taken while close cover hunting, but imo spreaders aren't a cost effective option for those that shoot volume sporting clays or skeet.

Again I say good spreaders, as confirmed by paper pattern testing at increasing ranges.

Of course a real downside of having a 'smith open chokes using a conventional parallel sided adjustable reamer (not tapered) is that it’s a dead giveaway of that work when trying to sell an otherwise high condition/all original vintage double-gun.