With just under a 1/4 million Parker’s produced they are not all collectors. Some should be enjoyed and shot and set up the way you would really enjoy.
I’m only an occasional clay bird shooter so I like to shoot guns that work for my game which is wild birds.
I wouldn’t think of modifying chokes on high grade and high condition gun but why not carry a gun you love to shoot and that is choked the way you would have ordered it had you been born in a time that would have been given you that option?
No need to find another gun if you own a shooter grade Parker, and wish it was choked differently.
Just make sure you send it to a professional such as Dean Harris and some others... not just a hack.
A few hundred dollars invested that might bring a smile to your face the next time that covey rises.
Just my 2 cents and I’m sure don’t expect all will agree, but some things are done for just plain old self satisfaction.
To heck with what the next guy wants. Live for the day.
Most of my guns will be sold 50 cents on the dollar or less when the time comes and I’m chasing birds over my long passed dogs. It won’t matter how my favorite guns are choked.:)

When the gun was built Chokes came first, then regulation two most important steps. Ribs laid and outside of the barrels filed and finished. All hand work . 100 years later try to alter the chokes nothing concentric to set up tooling. Run a reamer in the barrels it may center or may not. It has to index on something to run true. Look at a lot of Parker’s in a large setting like the Southern you will see many open jobs that have gone wrong. Muzzles not concentric and who knows what it’s done to point of impact No doubt it has been done successfully but many botched jobs.

Modern shotgun machine made the barrels are round and straight, opening chokes reasonable thing to do. Vintage hand regulated gun it’s a mistake.

William

As I have gotten older I have come to appreciate tighter chokes. At one time it was said that improved cylinder could do anything on a sporting clay course and I relieved the left barrel of a GH to .010 constriction. I regret it. Today my go to sporting clay's gun has .015 and .025 constriction. For wobble trap my VH has .030 and .042 constriction. A favorite quail gun is a #1 frame 12 gauge GH with .005 and .027 constriction shooting 7/8 oz of #8 shot. My point is to have different choked Parkers for different sports. Wouldn't a Parker with .040 and .044 constriction make a great turkey gun. However, if I were to re-choke a gun these would be the folks to do it: https://www.simmonsguns.biz

Thanks Mr Davis; Those are my thoughts also but how did Parker Bros do it when guns were returned?

I respectfully question the order of the barrel build. This is due mainly in part to my current project of fitting a set of 410 and 28 gauge model 21 barrels. Both sets of barrels were over sized externally and chambers were under size as well as the bore. No choke. Barrels were fit, struck and then sent to have chambers cut for proper fit and length. Bores opened to Winchester specs, and then choked.
Parker May have done things differently and I hope others can share there knowledge on the build process by Parker.
Chokes can be perfectly recut with the right person using the proper equipment set up off the bore.

They did it the same way other contemporary gunmakers of the time did it: return to the barrel shop, chock the barrels into whatever jig was used to align, center, bore and lap the individual choke cones and run of constriction to achieve pattern density, alignment, concentricity and distribution according to the customer's desired specifications. The Order Books are full of citations for guns returned with the notations, "open chokes", "make shoot straight", "pattern RB X%, LB Y%", "make shoot 6" high at 35 yards", and so forth an so on. No mystery or alchemy here (unlike things like case coloring and nitre bluing formulas); this was all mechanics and careful attention to detail.

I have also come to appreciate tight chokes and original guns. I once owned a nice straight grip DHE 12 with 32 inch barrels. The right barrel would smash a clay target but I wasn't getting the smoke I expected. Turns out someone opened the right barrel to IC. I sold the gun.

I have two very nice 16's a Lefever and a Purdey that are choked IC/F. I have used spreader loads in the left barrels of both guns while grouse hunting and suffered no ill effects.

It matters not to me if its a shooter VHE or a higher condition graded gun if the chokes are original to the gun then leave them the way there done by the experts at Parker.

I would have to guess how Parker opened a choke on finished guns. Agree with Kevin probably hand hone while checking pattern and point of impact as the opening progressed. Doubt if any gunsmith today is doing it that way.

If using a machine or hand turned reamer after the gun is finished problem is how the barrels were regulated. Regulation is bending with wedges wired in place with ribs laid to maintain regulation. How much was it bent were do you index the reamer ? The bore may be straight may not be. Don’t know about 21s guessing again they may have been set up like a Rifle or modern O/U shotgun regulation and bore interior dimensions set by precision not hand regulation.

Willam

Parker Brothers barrel making, chamber and forcing cone cutting, boring and choke cutting are all discussed in depth by Bill Furnish, Richard Hoover, Austin Hogan and others in early issues of Parker Pages.

The "Parker Pages Digital Archive" is indispensable in researching such topics. I have spent a couple of hours this afternoon re-reading a few of the articles by these authors who were consummate researchers on the subject of shotgun boring.

A short reading list in the Digital Archive would be ...

"History of Shotgun Chokes" by Richard Hoover and Bill Furnish, Parker Pages Vol. 3, Issue 4 July/Aug 1996

"Steel Archaeology" Parker Pages Vol. 3, Issue 5 July/Aug. 1996



Incidentally, the word "honing" gives me the chills.... "Cutting" and "polishing" are more appropriate terms for the boring and choke cutting processes Parker Brothers used.





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"Parker Bores and Chambers" by Austin Hogan Parker Pages Vol. 18, Issue 4 Pg 30.

Anyone who has spent time on the doublegunshop.com website or any other shotgun website has come to the conclusion that barrel butchers are barrel butchers and opening or modifying chokes is a crapshoot and you are better off doing it yourself or not doing it at all. The best solution to opening chokes is to load spreaders or buy them. I am in my sixtieth year of buying double guns, shooting skeet, both Olympic and NSSA, trap, pigeons, sporting clays and wild birds, and, somehow, I have avoided ever modifying a choke, or even a chamber. Just my take on it.