Todd, I think with the Trojans they were all choked F/F & F/M and IC/M on the twelves without necessarily adhering to a pellet count.

Tom, I wrap a moderate amount of Frontier pad around a brass brush, attach it to a cleaning rod, chuck it up in a cordless drill, dip it in Hoppe's and go to work on the bores. Frontier Pads will NOT harm the bores at all.





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Is that true for just the Trojans Dean? If not, at what grade could one expect to receive a gun along with a functional test, that's papered? Were guns provided with the actual target used to determine pellet count or was a simple notation made somewhere besides the record book (in some cases I suspect)?

Good points Todd. I'll have to get a letter on the gun. But I can't imagine Parker leaving little choke in the right barrel for a gun that was ordered with 28" barrels and modified and full choke. Frankly, I don't think the dilemma will ever be resolved.

Scott, Parkers were only provided with two hang tags - one of which listed the shot size, the target size/distance, and the shot count from each barrel.

Trojans may have had such a hang tag but, never having seen one, I don't know. I do know they had hang tags - the one I started hunting with at age 13or 14 had two tags but they were illegible, being oil soaked and grimy.





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I have a now 87? yr old lady duck hunter friend who shot the choke clean out of an Ithaca Mod 37, but she was using steel shot. She had a screw in choke installed and kept on shooting.

Shooting even a gadzillion loads through a gun will not "wear out" the chokes. Is this gun still on face Tom? That would wear first.

To establish the "choke" for the gun you would have to take the choke diameter then subtract it from the bore diameter and then pattern it on paper. Remember that the loads that the gun was patterned with are vastly different from the loads commercially available today. Unless you reload with fiber, filler or overshot wads the plastic shotcups and modern powders that most of us use are going to give you a totally different result. And yes the Galazan type plug gauge only measures the very end of the muzzle and they can be way off.

Best advice is to take it out and shoot some targets with it Tom. The proof is in the pudding. If it breaks targets hard on the skeet field then you got choke. If not someone has reamed the chokes. We don't live that far from each other Tom, contact me and I'd be happy to measure the gun for you and just maybe we could shoot a few targets just for the fun of it.

shoot it at paper, I think you will find if it was F and M it still will be if it in deed hasn't been touched. I shoot a lot of patterns and find with "opened choked " guns shoot tighter than they constriction say what they "should be". I have shot 12 ga guns with .013 of choke and get 60%, (mod) but should be closer to imp cyl, Try at test pattern at 40 yds and that will tell all.
scott

Question is when did shotgun manufacturers get to a standardized method of measurements of choke based on constriction and not by pellet count?

As example years ago went halibut fishing in Alaska. Wife, dad and son tag teamed and caught a barn door. After shooting it a couple of times with a 410 they wrangled it on board and measured it. They said it weighed 198 pounds give or take 2 pounds. Seems after about a 30 year study with thousands of fish measured and weighed they could estimate a fishes weight within 2% accuracy.

So in early 1900's when did they start just calling things choked a certain way instead of doing the pellet count after years of testing. Maybe the Trojan was the first gun in the Parker line to do this.

Tom I agree you may never know if gun has slightly changed a point or two on choke constrictions due to wear. Also as alluded to with less shot deformation occurring in a modern load the gun may shoot tighter. As long as it patterns around what your shooting and looking at I think it is what it is since I know you aren't going to change it.

BTW I have a Parker VH 16 that think is full and full originally. Right barrel I think is slightly more open after use and it is like an improved modified. Don't think it came that way from factory and fairly certain that gun was not reamed but I think years of shooting that right barrel first has maybe opened the gun a few points. BTW it is well worn but taken care of as well and most of the checkering is very smooth and I like it that way.

FWIW I have a 12ga Trojan 28" from 1913. It has .729 bores in both barrels with .021 constriction in the right barrel and .036 in the left barrel. The letter I have says it patterned 225 pellets right barrel and 250 pellets in the left barrel. I need to dig out the results of shooting patterns with it which is on an old computer but I believe it shot full and extra full at 40 yards with 1 1/8 ounce number #6 lead. As others have mentioned to figure this out you need a letter that hopefully gives chokes or pattern information, measure your bores and chokes and pattern it into a 30" circle at 40 yards. Plastic wads made loading shells easier for ammo makers, they don't automatically mean tighter patterns vs. old ammunition, antique paper shells can pattern very tight. In the end the only thing that counts for choke is the pattern it throws on paper.

Tom: here is a "Wear-And-Tear" Trial, but only 2500 shells
https://books.google.com/books?id=inQCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA109

30,000 rounds with improved full choke pattern
https://books.google.com/books?id=inQCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA227

W.W. Greener in The Gun; a gun used by "Schultze" for many years in which the pattern % improved over time
https://books.google.com/books?id=3HMCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA353