To choke or not to choke?

[Austin W Hogan]

The .003 and .005 chokes you note are probably the remaining initial choke tapers after 2 inches was removed from the muzzle. You should pattern the barrels to be sure the point of impact has not been disturbed by cutting.
I would recomend this before changing chokes.
Find a friendly skeet club that will allow you to shoot some stations in reverse order, or shoot the outgoers and incomers at the point you choose. Take a few boxes of field 7 1/2 shot and try this.
Wait until high house 1 and 2 start to drop before shooting. You can get 35 to 45 shots by doing this. Reverse the order of shooting the doubles on sta 1,2,6 and 7. You can get 25 - 30 yard incomers, and 30 - 40 yard plus outgoers. Face the high house and ask for a double on sta 8. You will get a 10 yd incomer and 40 plus yard outgoer. Breaking these birds indicates no need for changing choke.

Best, Austin

[Bruce Day]

Austin, you know we say that the modern plastic full shot cup wads significantly hold the pattern together in comparision to the old cardboard non cup wads. And I am aware that there are some shot cups,sold by Ballistic Products for example, that are purported to tighten the pattern better than others. Have you done any experimentation with those?

My own sense of shot cup effectiveness is that they will add at least one full increment of choke, IC to Mod for example, over a so called brush wad without the cup.

Perhaps the poster could experiment with different shot cups to tighten the pattern.

Regards,
Bruce

[Coach]

My suggestion is this - do not waste your money on making "upgrades" to this gun. Save your $$$ for your next Parker Gun - you have been bitten, and there is no known cure!

Carl.

[Dean Romig]

I agree with Austin and Bruce on this. Cutting 2" off the end of a Parker's barrels does not constitute removing all choke. I had a 12 ga. with 27" barrels cut from a 30" set and still had .003" and .004" of original choke and that gun did everything I asked of it however, I never asked it to perform beyond 45 yds. I would enjoy your gun just as it is.

[C Roger Giles]

Kevin;

Check with Saint Nicholas for Grouse Decoys as he will be comming through your neck of the woods in a month.

You might ask him for a jug (large size) of Famous Grouse as I know he keeps it in stock alll the time.

Ho Ho Roger

[Ed Blake]

I hope he's better with those grouse decoys than he was with my pony. Still haven't gotten it.