I'd nearly agree with everything said here; except that I believe large shot (In my experience) usually works better in more open chokes because it requires less pellets to effectively down a bird. If you are going to get really serious about dove hunting or shotgunning in general I would get a reloader, preferably a MEC. My favorite dove load is 1 1/8 of High Antimony 7 1/2's pushed by 34.4 gr. of Hodgdon's Longshot and a WAA12 Wad. This load is listed at 1530 FPS in the Hodgdon Manual and has proven extremely useful. Recoil is more severe than in standard loads and there is more powder per shell than in factory loads but it is more than worth it. For example, I absolutely hate to hit doves and watch them drop somewhere near the horizon and on the opening morning a buddy of mine was using Winchester's "Universal" Promotional loads... he busted a dove at 30 yards and watched it fly nearly 70 yards and light on a highline. After several minutes the dove dropped from its perch, dead as a hammer! For most dove hunting I use a modified choke, but when we set up 12 decoys most of the time I switch to improved cylinder.