Chokes what to do

[Mark Parela]

Gentlemen I have an issue and we are going to need a sit down. I purchased a wonderful DHE 32" VR Single trigger, beavertail for flyer shooting. I sent this gun to out had it redone, the man show did the work is first class all the way.

From what I know the gun left the shop with both barrels full choked. Someone over the years figured they should open the right barrel up. The bore is .732 but as it gets into the right barrel choke it was done poorly and is a all over the mic. with a final choke of about 18thou for a quarter inch.

I took her out this past weekend and shot some flyers using Remington pigeon loads along with RST 3drm loads. That right barrel is just not tight enough for my likings. Would you unload the gun or have a tube installed. If I was going to have a tube installed I would Wilkensen do the job.
Well whatcha think.

[Mike Shepherd]

Send the gun to a barrel smith. Let him look it over and make recommendations. Kirk Merrington comes to mind. If there is enough wall thickness ahead of the chokes the barrel can be jugged choked. I don't have personal experience with it but I have read that lengthening the forcing cone will tighten up the pattern. Most recently Chuck H. posted here about lengthening the forcing cones in a 410.



Best,

Mike

[Bruce Day]

No real advise, just a sad experience. Had a friend who contacted me with a gun that he had the chokes let out from ultra tight to mod. They came back out of round and threw odd oblong patterns with quail sized holes. You could feel with your finger that they were out of round. The only recourse for the gun was to further relieve the chokes to IC and then the muzzles were pretty thin. He sold the Parker, for some people it would have been a good close gun, but for him it was ruined.

I am not a gunsmith, so I cannot comment on the mechanics of what went wrong.

If the barrels pattern well , but the pattern is too sparse, what about some of these Ballistic Products shot cups like the Long Ranger that are supposed to keep the pattern tight? I have not tried them but I have heard they work.

[Don Kaas]

I also shoot pigeons. I would send it to a good choke man and have him clean up the right barrel retaining as much choke as possible. (the "all over the mic" comment worries me). See how it shoots on paper and on birds before you tube it. You might also try RST's pigeon loads and Winchesters. .018 of choke on a first shot using hard 8s can be very effective. I have won most on my matches (not that many but more than a few) using .015 to .020 in my first barrel. I think most pigeon shooters could do with less choke in their first barrel not more. Most first shots out of the trap by an experienced gun strike the bird at 30-33 yards. A good patterning modified chokes is more than sufficient. Having said all that. If you like the gun but insist on "more choke" just put a tube in the right barrel. I have a Purdey pigeon gun with notchless Briley S1s in one of its barrel sets and I recently acquired a 34" 3 frame DHE with Brileys in both barrels (somebody paid $9200 for this gun a Julias a few years ago so I guess Brileys did not destroy its value). I also have a rather rare BSA Magnum Wildfowler BLE with Brileys that I use a a rain gun for waterfowl. A nice double with tubes is still a nice double. I wouldn't have tubed these guns myself but I was happy to buy them with the tubes- just MHO...

[Mark Parela]

I have patterned the gun with several loads but they are spotty. As for shooting flyers with a 15 choke have at it. I want min 20thou in my first barrel. Shooting flyers is a game where you do not rely on an opened choked, choked tight and balls of stainless steel topped of without thinking gets em down.

I would venture to say Wilkensen does some unreal work and if you look at the winners in pigeons and trap shooters he's the go to guy. I was not getting the hits like I do with my 21 that for sure in the right barrel. The left was fine.

[Don Kaas]

Thanks for the advice...you are clearly an expert already.

[Ray Masciarella]

Precision Arms and Gunsmithing located in King City, Ontario sleeved chokes in my 12 ga that were bored out to 11ga. They are not scerw in but sleeved. Can hardly tell they are there. I would have to point it out to you for you to noticed them. Beats having to use tubes. Ray

[Mark Parela]

Don by no means an exert you gave me an answer and I am going to get it tube. When you mentioned the auction sale well then I am not going to kill the value of the gun. I guess it's I have invested a pile in the gun between buying it, Turnbull doing it up and now cleaning up the choke. When I had the gun in Madrid I should have taken the offerings and picked up another. Another lesson learned the hard way.

[Chuck Bishop]

Mark,

If you mean Tom Wilkinson from N. Carolina, he is the guy the top dogs go to to fine tune their barrels. Since I'm not a top dog, I've not had any barrel work done by him but his reputation is top notch.

[Dean Romig]

From what is said all over the gun sites Mike Orlen in Amherst, Ma. is the best choke man bar none.

[Leighton Stallones]

I have had a couple of guns sleeved choked . They work well and are invisible. Briley did mine,but there are others that do as well or better

[Daryl Corona]

I agree with Don that .018 is sufficient in the first barrel but I also am a lover of tight chokes so I can understand where Mark is coming from. If your bore is .732 why not ream it out to .728-.729 and you'll get the .020-.021 you are looking for. Don's load of 8's would work nicely as I routinely use 1 1/8 of 9's in the first barrel until the weather gets bitter cold. My first barrel to me is used to knock the bird down or slow it up until I can anchor it with my second barrel using premium 7 1/2's. The more I shoot the more I have come to the conclusion that people obsess too much about choke.

[Mark Parela]

I am trying to figure this out, if I was to ream the choke to say .729 would that be a clynder bore. Correct me If I am wrong on how I determine a choke.

I have a Stan Baker bore gauge. I zero it then find out what my bore is in this case .732 then I take my guage and zero to the bore, pull up to the choke and that gives me the constriction of the choke. So if I had a bore .732 and the choke went to .702 that would be 30 thou constriction? .692 40thou?

The biggest thing to me is the butcher job that was done already. For the most part I shoot Europe or into Mexico, I see very few US shooters over there? Of course that is a game of miss an OUT. Stakes are higher maybe it's a mental thing I dunno but I like to have my guns to what I consider perfect.

I have never seen a gun club in the US like this. Talk about a shoot when you see 300 shooters drop in a day.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v321/boxbirder/rings6.jpg

[Daryl Corona]

That's correct. The difference between the bore diameter and the diameter at the muzzle is your choke constriction. Your best bet if this thing is going to drive you crazy is to send the barrels to a good barrel man and have him evaluate it. Then he would be able to tell you how you can get the most constriction from what you have. Good luck.

[Austin W Hogan]

Boxbirder; With respect to your choke constriction , see several of my PP and DGJ articles about the Super Fox and several Parker competition guns. Choke tapers, measured with a Stan Baker and a jig are shown.
Parker chokes were reamed and polished "to deliver" on the customer's request. Some look pretty bad but deliver tight patterns. It is not necessarily the actual diameter, but the rates of changes in diameter that make patterns.
I would not re cut that choke before counting at least 10 patterns on two days.

Best, Austin

[Austin W Hogan]

Boxbirder; To put a little more on the last note; the aerodynamics of spheres make the trajectory of any single pellet purely random. This allows the use of pure math statistics to estimate pattern variations. The random variation within a pattern is plus or minus the square root of the number of shot in the pattern.
There are 350 shot in an ounce of 7 1/2 shot. An 80% pattern of 1 to 1 1/4 ounce of 7 1/2 shot varies by about =/- 20 shot. A single pattern from a gun that averages a 75% pattern has an equal chance of being 70% or 80%. Don's experience and advice is very good.
Don't fret over choke dimensions; convince yourself you have a good gun by shooting patterns and picking the proper ammo match.

Best, Austin

[Dean Romig]

Isn't Austin a treasure!

Thanks Austin. Only you can put it into those words.

[John Truitt]

Box,

If you are otherwise happy with the gun, in everyother way, then send it to the barrel guy of your choice and have him put the choke in it that you want.
Make it your own. Dont worry about devaluing the gun. At that point it will be what you want and valuable to you. In a few years when you and if you decide to sell her you will be able to. Might not get your cost back for the barrel work but atleast a cost you could live with.
If for any other reason you dont like her now. Part with it. Move on and find another.
Good luck with your decision and good luck at the traps.
The other guys have given you some sound advice. IMHO I would just send it out to make it what I want if I were otherwise pleased with the gun.

[Bill Murphy]

Boxbirder, I think you misinterpreted Daryl's suggestion to ream out the bore to .729. I don't think he meant for you to go out the end with the reamer, as you suggest.