Chokes Revisited (and Revisited, and Revisited...)

[MaggieMollie]

My personal opinion and I'm sure there will be disagreements is on the field chokes are as expected but in practice is tighter chokes. Many, many years ago shot a lot of competitive skeet and the group I was with practiced all kinds of crazy things when nobody was around. Shooting in between stations, shooting 10yds behind stations, targets pulled while walking between stations and not calling, calling shots (off nose/tail, by halfway to stake, at stake, beyond far house, etc.) And we shot with M/F chokes. Did the same thing with targets from trap houses.

It taught sight pictures and leads. Then when shooting competition or hunts, we used the appropriate choke.

Most bird hunting, for me its IC and mod or full. Unfortunately the birds don't know the chokes I'm using and tend to flush whenever they feel like it. I do use larger shot for the second round expecting the shot to be 40yds+.

[Mike of the Mountain]

Good thread Garry! Strictly for birds, I might have one gun that has an IC bbl, that's my 26" Lefever 12g. Everything else is either M/M, M/F or F/F. Yes, there are a few that are LM or IM, but for simplicity I'll just say M. My favorite upland bird gun is the Trojan 16g 28". That's M/F. If I think I'll have some up close and personal bird contacts I'll use spreaders (9 or 10 shot). If targeting mudbat I'll use #10, otherwise I'll load triplex loads (8, 7 1/2 and 6 shot) or duplex (5 and 6 shot). Straight away/incoming birds or birds with distance get the tighter bbl. Crossing, rising, dropping, closer birds get the more open bbl. Same thought process in clays for me, the shot size is determined by what type of target it is.

Turkey get Tight/Tight and a headful of #5 or XF and a headful of TSS (Rem turkey pump gun).

Waterfowl get LM/LM and ITX.

Crow get LM/LM and #5.

BTW, the LM/LM is a 12g 30" BSS. Chokes by Urlan, restocked by Dan Rositter and has an ISIS recoil system so it loves snotty loads.

Garry, is there anything left of that bird in pic #6??????

[6pt-Sika]

Originally Posted by RonKiska

My personal opinion and I'm sure there will be disagreements is on the field chokes are as expected but in practice is tighter chokes. Many, many years ago shot a lot of competitive skeet and the group I was with practiced all kinds of crazy things when nobody was around. Shooting in between stations, shooting 10yds behind stations, targets pulled while walking between stations and not calling, calling shots (off nose/tail, by halfway to stake, at stake, beyond far house, etc.) And we shot with M/F chokes. Did the same thing with targets from trap houses.

It taught sight pictures and leads. Then when shooting competition or hunts, we used the appropriate choke.

Most bird hunting, for me its IC and mod or full. Unfortunately the birds don't know the chokes I'm using and tend to flush whenever they feel like it. I do use larger shot for the second round expecting the shot to be 40yds+.

We kinda followed the same path . I shot competitive skeet and trap quite a few years back . It was all about SK & SK chokes in my Krieghoff and all the tubes . But in the trap barrels I wanted quite tight . I used to like to play a little game at the local club . I had a couple motives however we’d bet a couple bucks and usually someone was crowing to loud . We’d shoot a round of trap and a round of skeet high score winning the pot ; the catch however was you had to use the same gun same barrels and or chokes for both . They all knew I competed somewhere darn near every weekend so my Krieghoff was not allowed . Just so happened a had a Winchester Model 12 in 16 gauge with a 28” solid rib full choke barrel . And most of the time I went 50x50 never below 48x50 . Only sucked them in to doing this about eight times

[MaggieMollie]

Originally Posted by CraigThompson

We kinda followed the same path . I shot competitive skeet and trap quite a few years back . It was all about SK & SK chokes in my Krieghoff and all the tubes . But in the trap barrels I wanted quite tight . I used to like to play a little game at the local club . I had a couple motives however we’d bet a couple bucks and usually someone was crowing to loud . We’d shoot a round of trap and a round of skeet high score winning the pot ; the catch however was you had to use the same gun same barrels and or chokes for both . They all knew I competed somewhere darn near every weekend so my Krieghoff was not allowed . Just so happened a had a Winchester Model 12 in 16 gauge with a 28” solid rib full choke barrel . And most of the time I went 50x50 never below 48x50 . Only sucked them in to doing this about eight times

Yepper. Same. I shot a Perazzi MX3 tubes and 1100 in 12. Would put the full or mod barrel on the 1100. Or the full on then.410. We all tried as hard as we could to make the shooter miss delayed pulls. Throw empties over the barrel when called pull anything to distract from the target. But it forced you to concentrate on nothing but the target.