Why not full choke for everything?

T

Trip20

New member
I didn't want to hi-jack this thread: http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=171979 so I'm posting my question here.

In the aforementioned thread there is a chart referenced which suggests modified choke for most game bird.

I just started shooting shotguns, and similarly just started shooting trap as well. I use full choke for trap and am suprised at how well I'm doing - as are the club members. First time out I had a 21/25 and I've hovered in this area since I began a month ago.

I'm not stating this to toot my horn but it brings me to my point. I shoot well with full choke, why wouldn't I want to use this with any hunting I'll do as well - as to get a higher concentration of shot? Sorry if this is a silly question but I look forward to reading the logic that says less choke is better.
 
It is not advised to shoot steel shot out of a full choke gun (at least for some manufacturers). I think because it is too tight and steel is not forgiving like lead.
 
That would explain why my full choke says 'no steel'...

I could have sworn though, that you can purchase them at a sporting good store. Full choke tubes rated for steel shot? Or am I dreaming this up?
 
If you hunt with a full choke and shoot a "bird" at 10 yards, for example, you may not have much left(meat) if you center it. :)
 
You can always wait a second or two and let the bird get out to 30 yards and then center, it works for me anyway.

I use full choke for everything but slugs, skeet and sporting clays.
 
If you shoot well with a full choke, and you are prepared to risk potential meat damage, then by all means, use a full choke. However, there exist people like me, who are incapable of hitting a barn wall at 5 yards with a scoped 10 ga :D. So we use wider chokes. I hunt most birds with a modified, to try and balance the hit probability with the fatal hit probability. With the exception of turkeys, who need the tightest choke you can find.
 
Reminds me of my Uncle who went Pheasant hunting with birdshot. The meal was great, but I came in 3rd in the "Find the most BBs in you're meat" contest.
 
I'm betting that if you are shooting TRAP from the 16 yd line (singles) your scores would improve if you went to a more open choke.

Screwing around with chokes ( :p ) is fun and annoys other shooters.

Go to the Briley website and study their range of chokes. 10 different constrictions from spreader to extra full.

Besides, any fool can shoot a shotgun, learning the intracacies of chokes make you a real shotgunner. :)

Money spent on chokes is well spent, money spent on stuff to hang on guns is wasted. :D


I have a plastic shotshell box full of chokes for my guns, one box for K guns, one for Remingtons, drives other shooters crazy. :p
 
I had my Trap gun bored out to Mod from full just to tight for 16 yard trap.All I ever used for any upland birds was Improved cly may have missed a few long shots but then most long shots are just that.Ever see a Pheasant fly across 5 hunters and all empty there guns and not one hit.Years ago before the shot cups they use today you needed a full choke with the wads they used the shot spread faster,now today that shot cup holds the shot in a lot tighter you can probably go down one choke size??? :)
 
K80Geoff, I'll try the modified. Anything that'll improve my chances I'm for it.

It's just when I started trap this year, everyone said "full choke!!!" so thats what I put in, and stayed with. My shotgun came with 4 other chokes so I'll give modified a try, thanks.

Twycross: I shoot well with a full choke at 16yrd trap. I haven't hunted with the shotgun yet so who knows, it could be a whole different story and I come home hungry :o

Since I shot trap last night I'll give you all a laugh:
I started out in the station #2. I got 5/5 at that station. Moved to station #3, 5/5 again! Moved to station #4, 5/5. Unbelievable. I get to station #5, and yet again, 5/5. I'm going to my last station, #1. I'm going into the last station with a 20/20! All I need to do is get 5 more birds for my first 25/25. I miss the first 3, get the 4th, and miss the 5th.

I wanted to cry. You gotta remember I'm new to this - so I was more concentrating on keeping focused and calmed down because I was so excited I was going into the last station with out a missed bird. That hasn't happened to me yet. Then I get there and CHOKE! (punn intended)
 
Slugs & large buckshot will get excessively deformed in a full-choke barrel and generate more recoil. Have tested this theory myself.
 
There was a time when lots of folks got by with one gun with a full choke. Of course, that was before the introduction of plastic hulls and wads/shot cup and the resulting tighter patterns - some would say overtight.

For example, my father used a full-choked Win Model 12 20 ga. for years and years. One gun and high brass #6. He shot all sorts of small game, birds, 2 turkeys on the wing with 2 quick shots, and his third of an angry black bear that stumbled into three of them one day while they were bird hunting.

We were patterning his new 28 ga. Guerini O/U yesterday with 3/4 oz. target loads and he looked at the first two shots at 25 yards and asked which tubes I'd put in, IM and FULL? Nope, CYL and IC.

Then I tried the Extended Range(or whatever they're called) #6 hunting loads with CYL and IC at 50 yards and actually poked a few holes in each the 2 clays I'd propped on the berm. The FULL tube was a major improvement at that distance, but still pushing the limits of the 28.

I'm ready to buy a 20 ga. and then start collecting a Guerini in every gauge.

John
 
I haven't patterend my 12ga yet, thats something I need to do.

I'm going to shoot trap again tonight, probably 3 rounds. I'm going to try the modified out, and see what happens. I suppose logically I should expect to hit more birds... but who knows at those distances I think really should stick with full choke. By the time I actually get the shot off the bird is about 25 yards at least.

I dunno we'll see!
 
Trap is a specialized game where full choke has it's place. If you use a full choke in the field, you handicap yourself on 90% of the birds that rise. If you want to do a little test, then try your full choke on skeet and see how you do. Then try a real skeet gun.

Of course I've known plenty of bird hunters who are perfectly willing to handicap themselves at normal bird ranges just to be able to reach those 10% (or less) that get up farther away.

The problem of tearing up your birds when you do hit them has already been pointed out. A 12 ga. with IC and 1 1/4oz or a 20ga. Mod. with 1oz. has served me very well for all upland gamebirds. As many get up under your feet as get up real far.

For waterfowl, the choke systems designed for lead shot shoot very tight with steel. My modified waterfowl barrel is too tight over decoys--even IC shoots tighter than needed with steel shot.
 
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Trip says, "I just started shooting shotguns, and similarly just started shooting trap as well. I use full choke for trap and am suprised at how well I'm doing - as are the club members. First time out I had a 21/25 and I've hovered in this area since I began a month ago."

I am just as surprised as you are Trip..........

I think more reading, shooting, and studying shotties will give you the answer for your question.
 
Mannlicher said:
I am just as surprised as you are Trip..........
Click to expand...
Not sure if you were being sarcastic, implying I'm embellishing... (sorry it's hard to read peoples posts, and intent. I'm sure you understand)... but yeah it's ridiculous. Tonight, I shot two 20's and a 19. Definitely not great, but I'm really encouraged since I'm so new to the sport. Especially since I'm shooting next to guys with $3,000 O/U's (some of them anyway) and I'm using a $300 Benelli Nova Pump :o .

I didn't try the modified choke tonight, only because I was short of time, and had to go directly to trap from work, and my spare chokes were at home in my "tool box".

I have a hunt scheduled tentatively in Iowa, at a buddies uncle's place. Excuse my ignorance but I think its pheasant or quail (assuming both birds live in this geographical location). So I'm eagerly trying to learn about hunting upland birds, choke suggestions, shot-size suggestions...etc, before the hunt. I know I can find 99% of what I need from doing a search on TFL, but sometimes, the shotgun forum gets lethargic and it need to be kicked in the behind by a noobs question. :o

Sometimes it's more fun to discuss rather than research.

PS- I shot doubles tonight with a pump. (stupid I know). I got 38/50. If I only had a semi-auto!!!

Edited to add: Regarding me being new and shooting well - I was watching some kids shooting this evening, with their fathers, and club members who are known to be "the best"... these kids were doing great! I was blown away watching these two kids, who had a hard time even holding the heavy barrel up in front of themselves, shoot so well and get so excited. It made me wish I had the opportunity to get into this when I was their age. They don't even know how lucky they are at this point in their lives. It's wonderful to think that one day they'll be thanking their fathers/club members for the mentoring.

I'll be sure my 5yr old - when he's ready - will receive a proper introduction into guns of all sorts. And the various sports and hunting that surround the same. Thanks to you all, I'll (hopefully) gain more knowledge to pass on. Thanks.
 
I wish I could "mentor" you into becoming a bird hunter. I'd say trap is fine, and good practice, and full choke is the way to go with a long barrel. After you did that a while, I'd have you on the skeet range with an open choked skeet gun. You would shoot International style, with your gunbutt below your elbow. No mounting the shotgun before hand. Then, when you could regularly hit as many at skeet as you're now hitting at trap, I'd have you tell the operator not to tell you when the birds were coming. Then one day you'd break your first 25 out of 25 at skeet.

First, however, you work on breaking 25 straight on the Trap 16 yd. line. When you average 22, or 23 birds, you're getting pretty respectable. Do it at skeet, you're a bird hunter. Wouldn't be long before you'd be ready for the pheasants, or grouse, where 1 1/4 oz. of 6's with an IC or Modified choke would work well. Then you could hunt quail with 1 1/8 oz. of # 8's with IC. Or use your trap loads---just lose that full choke in the field.

Then take up doubles or clays! :D
 
I used to use full choke for duck hunting just in case a flight of geese payed a visit. I used an 870 express with 3 inch shells, BB shot. It worked well for me, but then I started reading about potential damage from non-compressing steel shot, so I changed to modified. The results are basically the same, except I feel better about the barrel.

The point of this story, though, is that after duck season, I went on a quail hunt with two other foresters. Like a complete dope, I left the full choke in and couldn't hit anything close except once, and that bird was nothing but feathers when I hit it. However, I learned pretty quickly that if every one else missed, I could hit that bird once it got some range on it, so I bagged a few quail at distance. In fact, it was kind of fun to let the other guys miss and then take that bird. You know, that last boom that shows that nobody else could shoot, but I could. It was some vindication after missing so much early!

Davis
 
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