16 Craig

0 with light cuts

I picked up a 28" BBLd 16 ga hammer gun years ago. SN# 72105 An "0" frame with lightening cuts, fish tail top lever, and pistol grip stock.
It is a project gun, despite having been apparently used very little. (wood and metal are in fantastic condition) Some clown cold-blued the barrels, and put some kind of shellac or cheap clear coat over the stock wood.
I very carefully removed all of the barrel blue, as well as the incorrect wood finish. Stock dimensions are wrong for me, with 3 1/2" DAH and would need to be bent upward. LOP is perfect for me, @ 14 1/4".
I spoke to Brad Bachelder about a mild restoration, and had a price established for the work, but unfortunately Brad passed away before I pulled the trigger on the job. My bad!

That sounds like a nice gun Todd.

I've got several vintage smallbore "bird guns" that are honest but not high end collector pieces and they've all been properly opened to IC or Light Mod and Imp-Mod. And if the new chokes are properly done (tapered to the muzzle for Parkers) they’ll pass for factory work except with the very closest scrutiny. One less thing to think about when out in the covers. I do use handloaded spreaders in tightly choked 12-gauge for in the face clays during COMPETITION SxS events but that's about it. JMO of course.

I used to be real big on bird chokes in quail/grouse guns meaning open . And I think I got that way from shooting how many 100’s of thousands of rounds of skeet . But now I find myself feeling more comfortable with tighter choked guns on sporting clays and of course I shoot the same guns at skeet now as well as live birds . I suspect THE most open gun I’ll take to the Koneski Extravaganza will be M&F with most being full and full . I find anymore with open chokes I tend to try and shoot to fast thinking the target or feathered bird will outrun the capabilities of my choke . Where as if I’m shooting a tighter choked gun I shoot more relaxed and I suppose in a more comfortable state .

Frank I know you have done much study and shooting research with respect to chokes so I value your opinion. I have a 20 ga Fox that I want to make into a grouse and woodcock gun (now M&F). I was thinking of .006 (IC) and .010 (light modified). Your input appreciated.

Craig, in my opinion those would be too open and your shooting would suffer in the late season when leaves are down and the birds flush farther out.

I would open them to about .010” and .020” and then pattern them. You can always open them a tad more but you can’t put metal back.




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Craig, thanks for your vote of confidence. Here in northeast PA the days of close flushing grouse are distant. IMO hunters have culled the "dumb ones" and the current gene pool makes for wary birds that will generally flush much farther out than even one human generation ago. Then you’ve got avain and land predators galore, more so than in days past and making for spooky birds. As you know I mainly concentrate on grouse and will take woodcock and pheasants on opportunity. When opening a tightly-choked 20 bore for the uplands I'll make the chokes about .010 and .018 (Light and Improved Modified with modern plastic shot cup ammo). But if I were concentrating on woodcock with the occasional grouse I'd go for about .003 and .013. Of course these constrictions aren’t absolute; a thou or two either way won’t make that much difference in patterning and with any choke you ‘ll get some variability from use of different shells.

I set up a paper target in my back yard and from 20 yards with my M/F 16 GH and RST Falcon Lites the pattern was slightly high but more evenly uniform and spread than I would have dared imagine. I repeated it, and the shot pattern wasn't too awful tight again and I think for Grouse and woodcock flushing a bit further out (a la Srebro..) it will be just fine as is. I have yet to do other guns.