To choke or not to choke?

[Ed Blake]

Jack - It sounds like that gun has it nailed. How much more could you want out of a 16? From personal experience I tend to think a lot of how shooters "feel" about chokes is a between the ears kind of thing. Once you've established confidence in a gun's capabilities and know it will get the game or break the target, choke is secondary. Enjoy.

[Wes Stueber]

Hi Jack,
Check it out on your patterning board first, you may be surprised at the results - you never know?
Briley may be able to do the work you're thinking of, at least after they look at it. Best of luck in the field with it this fall - put it to work!
Regards,
Wes

[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