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.
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