I grew up with a mind set that a modified choke was an open choke. When I shoot RST spreaders in all my fulll and wicked full Parkers I get a very consistent modified pattern at 35-40 yards that gives me a lot of confidence in a choke I am used to with no need to bore a gun.
If you really want to open a gun I suggest maybe do one barrel. I just got back from a day of pigeon shooting with a British 16 choked cylinder and full. True select trigger for near and far and becoming more and more a desirable combination. I love it. Not a radical combo at all.

My spreader loads are useful under 20 yards. Example of what you can do longer shots with factory chokes, Patterned my 16 G Trojan few days ago. Right modified barrel 3/4 oz 7 1/2 at 25 yards no spreader insert produced very good game load patterns. If the shell was loaded with 1 1/8'oz modified would probably put too many pellets in a bird ruining it for the table. Of course had the gun been open choked and 1 1/8 oz pattern spread would be wider with shot density about like the 3/4 oz loads

Do I need a wider spread at 25 ? IC choke might give the gun another 12 inches spread. When I miss its much more than 12 inches, pattern won't save a bad shot. Choosing your load you can make that Parker do just about anything. Spend some time on paper with that Trojan get to know it well then decide.

William

Great advice Bill. I've always believed that choke is measured in inches, misses are measured in feet.

Perfect full screen sizing on my screen. I do love my Trojans.

Very nice - and I like the book too, a Derrydale reprint of the original 1930 book by Eugene Connett.

A vendor had the original Derrydale at his booth at Rock Mountain. I may call him...





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Thanks all; didn't mean to hijack chazcole's thread. I was just happy to see that my old 16 has a sister out there!

When I was making the post and previewed it the thing was huge; would barely fit on the page. I thought that's the way it was gonna look; I even did it over 2 or 3 times and tried tests on other sites. So I added the apology; then when I made the post it went to an acceptable size. Computers are so confusing for old folks :banghead:!

I bought the whole series of those books when they came out; "The 50 Greatest Books of the Derrydale Press". It was a sporting Book-of-the-Month club; neat editions for those of us who can't afford the real deal. Pretty subjective as to what constitutes the 50 greatest I suppose; I wish they hadn't stopped at 50. They've exposed me to a number of writers I wouldn't have known about otherwise

One of the many things that wake me up in a sweat is having opened up a choke in a Parker. I was given a GH on a 1 1/2 frame that had a broken stock etc and had been refitted with 28" Vulcan barrels. I put them on another GH and shot it at everything. Thirty odd years ago I had the left barrel opened to improved cylinder (.010) for sporting clays. I had no idea what it was before, but I sure wish I had never done it. The right barrel is .012.

I'd definitely try spreaders. Don't open the chokes, once it's done there is no going back:nono: