Greetings All,
I bought a Savage/Stevens 9478 Break Barrel 12 Gauge shotgun at a pawn shop recently and I am trying to figure out the choke in this shotgun. From what I have pieced together from various forums, all the 9478s were made with full choke barrels. What I am finding with my measurements is different.
I measured the end of the barrel with my caliper found the diameter to be .729(typical 12 gauge).
Next I fashion a "choke diameter tester" by taking a AA battery and wrapping electrical tape around it very tightly(to minimize any squish of the tape) and kept trying to slide it through the whole barrel until it felt snug, but still passed through. Once it was snug, I took it out and measured it with my calipers and found the diameter size to be about .720.
Now, on all the "choke to bore diameter" charts I can find, a .009 reduction in the bore diameter for a 12 gauge results in an Improved Cylinder choke. This barrel definitely does not have the .035 reduction(.694 dia) that a full choke would be. So I figure that someone had the choke reamed out to Improved Cylinder at some point(or the gun came with an IC instead of a full choke to begin with). Would that be an accurate assumption based on the measurements I am seeing?
I know that the "real" way to test the choke of a gun is to shoot it, but I haven't been able to get to the range yet and I was just curious.
-Bryan
I bought a Savage/Stevens 9478 Break Barrel 12 Gauge shotgun at a pawn shop recently and I am trying to figure out the choke in this shotgun. From what I have pieced together from various forums, all the 9478s were made with full choke barrels. What I am finding with my measurements is different.
I measured the end of the barrel with my caliper found the diameter to be .729(typical 12 gauge).
Next I fashion a "choke diameter tester" by taking a AA battery and wrapping electrical tape around it very tightly(to minimize any squish of the tape) and kept trying to slide it through the whole barrel until it felt snug, but still passed through. Once it was snug, I took it out and measured it with my calipers and found the diameter size to be about .720.
Now, on all the "choke to bore diameter" charts I can find, a .009 reduction in the bore diameter for a 12 gauge results in an Improved Cylinder choke. This barrel definitely does not have the .035 reduction(.694 dia) that a full choke would be. So I figure that someone had the choke reamed out to Improved Cylinder at some point(or the gun came with an IC instead of a full choke to begin with). Would that be an accurate assumption based on the measurements I am seeing?
I know that the "real" way to test the choke of a gun is to shoot it, but I haven't been able to get to the range yet and I was just curious.
-Bryan