Parker Reproduction chokes revisited
 

:dh:


Had a close look at the choke area on a few barrel sets.

It appears to me the chrome plating is inclusive of the choke(s).

On a shooter, I believe I fall on the side of cutting for desirable choke & practical use preceded by a good bit of shooting w/the original configuration to assure necessity.

That said, it would be wise to approach the modification(s) with caution and perform the alteration incrementally along with the aid of a patterning board.

Collector pcs should be left as is :nono:

Far easier to remove metal than to put it back

:corn:

My original Damascus Parker 20 has IC and M and that has worked well for many years.
My repro 20 and 12 came with improved cylinder and modified and that has worked well also. For bird hunting, there has never been a reason to mess with the factory choke.

Thank you Charles.

I too find that choke combo just fine for most all of my shooting with exception of dog training (liberated Quail) & WoodCock when they bless us with their presence. I often opt for spreader loads for these occasions but have a set of 20ga barrels choked IC/Mod that I am strongly considering opening up.

Considering cost (spreaders vs 20ga shells)..I gravitate toward pigeons more often than I would otherwise while working the dog. I'd like to begin using Quail more frequently again.

Shifting gears, have you a set of Repro barrels w/Full chokes? How do they fare for you?

MD*GSP
No, I do not a have a barrel set with a full choke, nor have I ever used a full choked 20 gauge Parker.
The other family 20 gauge doubles are also IC/M (Weatherby O/U and SKB SxS).
This choke combo must work for most small game hunting or it would not be so common from gun makers.
My personal experience is that the modified choke will kill birds as far out as I can reliably hit them. For instance, when a flushed quail has escaped and settled in to sail to safety, they are very easy to hit and kill with the modified barrel.
For special applications such as shooting competition skeet or Woodcock, there must be
benefit to more open chokes (Q1/Q2) or people would not have them.

Always remember modern ammo is made to shoot tighter groups than ammo from days gone by. So less choke is O.K. and still shoots hard!!

I agree with Kenny and he is my Repro expert/consultant.

Educate the group on modern shells..although I've been slinging lead with reckless abandon since the teen yrs..there might have been focus upon other "things" :whistle:

I am aware that steel & other nontox alternatives tend to cloud tightly but I am post paper shells & do not differentiate from plastic wads/hulls from years past going back to say, the mid 80's.

I understand from study (reading), but that means squat!

Kenny..a review of previous threads shows that you have done some patterning but I don't see much follow up

Problem is, 28" barrels on a 20ga. Repro. seems to be a hard combo to find, choked M/IC.

That is true..most often one must acquire a 2-barrel set to get a 28" barrel however single barrel guns do show up from time to time.

No matter the configuration, these guns represent a tremendous value not likely to be duplicated ever again..jmho.

I'll take a crack at explaining modern shells!

I believe the rule of thumb for steel shot it that a gun will shoot one choke denomination tighter with steel than lead. For example a Mod barrel will pattern about full with steel. Steel is harder so the shot doesn't deform much or at all on its way down the barrel, nice round shot doesn't stray as much...tighter pattern.

Modern lead alloys are harder, better production makes shot rounder, plastic wads keep the shot from getting mauled up on its way down the barrel. Like steel shot, the shot doesn't deform as much and the result is a slightly tighter pattern. Eigh?

Chris T,
Sounds right to me.

I've mentioned this before, my 2 barrel 20 ga Repro, which I bought new, came 26" Q1/Q2 and 28" IC/F. For me, Q1/Q2 is deadly over pointed quail and in tight wooded grouse situations. Have shot multiple doubles time and time again. IC/Full is the perfect pheasant gun. Both configurations swing well and are light enough to carry all day. I have 10 guns in my safe and this Repro is my go to gun, fits like a glove.

I have two very different 20 ga repros that, in my view, are ideal for their intended purpose.

The first is a 26" splinter, pg, double trigger gun that I opened the chokes. Originally they were the standard IC/Mod but upon patterning checked out to more like Lt Mod/Imp Mod. Way too tight for a dedicated grouse gun so I opened them up to .004/.008, essentially the same as Q1/Q2. After 50 years of chasing grouse with about every conceivable gun possible I have to say this gun is as close to ideal as I've come. I practice with it quite a bit prior to the season and it amazes me at how well the tight barrel does on long clay targets. Targets much further out than I would ever shoot it at live game.

The second repro I bought as a dedicated clays gun. It is a 28" 20 with a beavertail, pg, and double triggers. A grouse gun it is not but at 7# it is a delight on the clays course. It came to me with Briley thin wall tubes installed with which I have had no trouble. Almost always I shoot the skeet/light mod tubes which cover the targets I encounter quite well. It took me over 5 years to find this gun but it was worth the wait.

So, two different guns, two different purposes, to which both are quite well suited.

There's a LOT we can say about chokes and everyone has his favorite gun and his favorite choke combination but we need to remember that a more open pattern that will break clays at extreme distances will only cripple live birds at those distances. Gary alludes to this by saying he would never shoot live game that far out.... but some folks will attempt the impossible and wind up crippling birds that they may never find - even with the help of a good dog.
The wild game we are so lucky to be able to hunt is much too valuable to cripple and lose. Yes, it does happen to all of us even with the best of intentions and carefully chosen shots but we mustn't overshoot our guns' capabilities.

I do love the Q1/Q2 chokes on my Repro 28 for the first couple of weeks of the season but will switch to a more tightly choked gun after the birds have been hunted a bit. I used to have the choice of IC/MOD on my Repros but just sold the IC/MOD gun :violin:





.

Too True, and well said Dean !

Absolutely Dean! There is far too much to the equation of humanly killing a bird with a shotgun to cover here. It goes well beyond the choke in the end of a barrel but I tried to stick to the topic of the thread. Unfortunately, too many hunters do not take the time to fully understand the consequences of the variables at play. They shoot at anything and then say oops, missed another one, when in fact they did not. One less bird for the dogs to work the next time.

Deans sentiment regarding ethics is one I suspect universal amongst members & frankly it is much of the motivation behind this thread..the topic while somewhat pointed bordering on scientific is free to go wherever it goes so far I’m concerned..I enjoy the discussion and always learn a lot.

I for one quit hunting yrs ago but for upland birds..don’t suspect that will ever change even in the face of a changing world that seems to be changing around me, just too hung up on bird dogs and the beauty of agriculture.

Remington Express shells have forged confidence in me while hunting regardless of gun and irrespective of gauge but for 28. An ounce of #5’s for birds larger than quail seem to be just about perfect.

28ga - the AA super sports (7.5’s), while a shade hot, seem to be very effective out of my 28ga PR but can still be a bit much even w/an IC choke over a dog…sts shells seem to soften things up a bit (Important to reemphasize ~ liberated Quails/WC hanging around the edges)

Tungsten Matrix shells are serious business & that seems to go against the grain of shot hardness/uniformity as the pellets themselves are none too pretty & quite soft if you should spend the couple-a-bucks it costs to cut one open.

At 25/30 yards one of those shells can put a lot of hurt on a wild Pheasant out of an IC choke & there is no pun intended in that comment whatsoever.

Seems like some days, even the widest of patterns is not enough & the gentle sound of wings sounds an awful lot like laughter :o

To a large extent, I’m reluctant to become too scientific and start sawing away on chokes, that’s why I’ve been mulling this over and have reached out for discussion from those that know.

All of the experience lent from everyone is much appreciated.

Keep it coming..


*Gary..I was sorely tempted by a 20ga that WLMoore recently advertised with a BT as the configuration offered would have dovetailed nicely into my modest collection..apparently someone else felt the same way.

I am just a bit apprehensive about shooting heavy loads of big shot out of my 28" 28 gauge Repro, because of the .039 constriction in the left barrel. Has anyone here bulged one of those 28 gauge full choke Repro barrels? If I want to shoot big shot, lead or otherwise, at big birds, I will use my IC and MOD barrels, which should shoot a good medium to long range pattern.

I have shot number 5 lead with no issue....DO NOT SHOOT STEEL OUT OF THE MOD/FULL SET! SXS Ohio....(-:

My 20 ga reproduction barrels that I've had Brian add a set of the Galazan 16 (Krieghoff) barrels and stock to my dims because the native claro stock broke while shooting though marked M/IC were NOT M/IC. I measured them and they were Left = 0.018 constriction and right 0.016 constriction.

I like to split the difference between IC and Skeet in right and M and IM in left. I've done this on paper and it has worked very well on farm pheasants and Woodcock and Grouse for me.

I typically lengthen cones if there's plenty of thickness unless it's a collector gun. I have seen the benefit on paper of this effort as well.

It has been my experience that using larger shot significantly reduced the number of cripples. I use qood quality fives for pretty much everything. I have friends who use 7s, 8s and even 9s on quail and are leaving more for the dogs to hunt up.. My repro is choked Q1 and Q2 and patterns so well that I have never torn up a bird with the larger shot.