What is the best choke for a New Skeet/Trap Shooter

M

mrschmitt

Inactive
I am going to be buying my first shotgun next week. I am getting a Remington Express 12 gauge. I realize that this isn't the best choice for trap/skeet shooting, but this is only one of the things that I will be using it for. My question is this: For Skeet shooting/Trap shooting(very casual at home shooting), what is the best choke tube that i can buy for it right now?
Thanks,
matt
 
Greetings,

My Remington 1100 came with a "Modified" choke tube, which works fine for me for Trap. I bought another choke tube, "Skeet," for shooting skeet, which I do not do much of. HTH.

Regards.
 
I believe the 870's express comes with just a modified choke which does just fine for the 16yd line for Trap. The 870 is a fine choice for trap, since in ATA all you need is one shot.

Skeet choke is ideal for skeet, obviously, but you can get away with an improved cylinder, without a problem. Now for skeet the 870 is not an ideal choice, for specifically the doubles but I learned skeet on a 870 and hit doubles very reliably and if I can do it anyone can, it also made me really appreciate my O/U that I have now.

Another consideration is barrel length, don't know what model you're getting but for clay games a good all around barrel length is 28in...a short 21in barrel is good for HD but not ideal on the clay fields.

Enjoy your 870, its a great gun.
 
Congrats and good luck with your new shotgun.

I suggest you check the files for a thread I started,"The Choke Mythology and Mess". It has some great input.

Through the improvements in loads,even a Skeet choke may be tighter than needed for Skeet. In your shoes, I'd try to find a Cylinder choke for the close shots, and if one cannot be found, go to Skeet. IC is nice for general work, but it's not that different from Skeet.

On the tighter end, go with Full, maybe an extra Full if turkey are in your future.

Between the three, and proper load selection, you should have the bases covered.

HTH....
 
Dave makes a good point. A cylinder choke might be better to use with your 870 at skeet. Theoretically it will give you a slightly larger pattern.

However if you are limited to one choke I would go with IC for both games. Not ideal but it will work. Better to have two chokes, one for skeet and one for trap.

Skeet can be shot with a pump. Doing so will teach you how to handle the gun and how to work the action smoothly.

I have seen several old timers who did quite well with their pumps.

And don't listen to all the dorks on the range who will tell you that a pump just won't work.

Of course the upside is that they may feel sorry for you and let you shoot their Perazzi or Krieghoff:D
 
And of course, Geoff, they may not feel a bit sorry for a pumpgunner when he or she shows them it's not the gun and smokes targets they're missing with their high dollar stuff.
Heh,heh,heh...
 
I have always had pretty good luck at trapshooting with either a full or a modified.

I have never shot Skeet, but the broad consensus is that you should get an open one, such as IC, C or a Skeet choke.
 
I use a Full choke for trap for two reasons...

1) If I don't hit the target dead on, I can tell where I miss by watching the largest piece of of the bird. If it goes to the right, I was a little too far left, etc.

2) I love the look of a smoked bird. :)
 
If you shoot a 1 1/8 oz. load for all your trap shooting then a mod.-imp.mod. is all you'll ever need. Anything lighter and a full choke is in order. I tend to shoot "sloppy" when using anything more open then full and I also shoot pretty light shot charges by trap standards.

dfm
 
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