The target shot by Parker Brothers in that period was smaller than 30 inches as well as being shot at 45 yards, not 40. I just looked at an early stock book in TPS and there was a whole page of 175 patterns out of 12 gauge guns with 30" and 32" barrels, not likely open choked guns. One gun lists a second barrel with a 150 pattern. I can't remember what the pattern size is in these early stock books, but I think it was 20" or 25". A 20" or 25" pattern at 45 yards with a 175 count is probably full choke. The 150 pattern is probably a modified in the TPS illustration. The reason that Mark does not always have complete information on patterns for our letters is that the stock book copies were too wide to reproduce on Commander Gunther's copiers in two pieces. Normally, the right column or columns were sacrificed. These columns contained the pattern information in some eras. He did not have the option of cutting off the right (correction, left) columns because they contained the serial number. Often, the load used and the distance and diameter of the target is not specified. When the Research Committee was at Ilion in 1998, we copied very few stock book pages because Commander Gunther had already made copies and gifted those copies to PGCA.

Based on past forum discussions, I don't think we reached a consensus as to what shot charge Parker used. (...and, I think it varies with era, as in early guns may have been patterned with lighter loads, with 20th century guns having heavier shot charges.)

Either way, this old ammo had no plastic shot cups/wad columns, and probably featured soft shot & the "less than gentle" acceleration of black powder - all things that won't result in optimal patterns.

Long story short, my gun (patterened the same as the one in this discussion) is a nice skeet gun with "old fashioned" black powder loads, but it's a trap gun with the modern, efficient RST shells.

So, regardless of what choke percentage it shot like in 1885, the practical shooter would want to know what choke it shoots like today.

In your case, I'd say at least modified.

Bill is exactly right on the pattern information. First of all, the page (copy) stops on the pattern information. Sometimes I can make it out others I can't tell the size of the shot. The early guns were patterned at 45 yards with 24 inch circles. In this case it says 45 yards but the size of the circle is not mentioned. In looking at the other guns on that page none are tighter than 175. That is the reason I feel it was full choke. Also in the order books if open chokes are desired, it says it in the order. If no choke is mentioned it is safe to assume the gun is full choke. Back in the time this gun was ordered the large dealers would order as many as 3 or 4 hundred guns at a time. Most were ordered with full choke and in my opinion the dealer would open them up if the customer wanted less choke.

Mark

Didn't Jeff state that his letter specified a 30" circle at 45 yards ?

My recommendation to anyone wondering about chokes, chamber length, or bore size is buy a Skeets gauge from Midway or Brownells for $100. Takes all the guess work out of it.

In the very early guns (under 10,000) the pattern information is usually all there including 24 inch circle. An example would be 175 8 45 24 and the 24 has a circle around it. I just pulled out about 20 stock books and once you get over 15,000 in serials none have the circle size. Most stop on the yardage. The page or copy stops before you get to the circle size. So, the question is, when did they go to a 30 inch circle. Another issue is that they changed the yardage from 45 to 40 for large bore guns. In what I just found they changed the yardage in the 80 to 90 thousand range from 45 to 40. Another problem is they used # 7 and 8 shot but I can see that in most cases.

Up to somewhere in the 80000 range 12 bore guns patterned about 175 and 10 bore guns were 195. I checked the early guns where they used a 24 inch circle it appears to be the same. So, I would say they stayed with the 24 inch circle until they changed the yardage from 45 to 40. I have no way to verify this unless we look at an original stock book.

Jeff, I mailed you another copy today with the city. I suspect the 30 inch circle should be 24. If you want it changed to 24, I can do that as well.

Mark

Mark, thanks for correcting my guess of 25 or 20 inch circle. I knew it was less than 30. Now we know it was 24. Mark is estimating as close as he can the dates and serial number ranges where they changed the range and target for the pattern information. To add even more confusion, there seem to be examples of use of 1 1/8 ounce loads as well as 1 1/4 ounce loads for patterning. There would be less confusion if we could see all the stock book information in the PGCA copies, but, as Mark and I have mentioned, we don't have all the information that was posted in the right columns.