Ladies and Gentlemen:

I picked up a NOS 28" invector 3" magnum barrel for my A5 Browning. It came with the IC, Modified and Full Invector tubes.

My question is after looking through the Brownell's catalog and knowing nothing about choke tubes, which ones perform the best?

Briley X-2 or Spectrum Mach 1;
Carlson;
Colonial Arms.

Also, are the original Browning choke tubes effective or are the aftermarket ones better?

Sincerely,

Chris Bemis

Chris -- The Browning invectors tend to have a little less constriction than other comparable chokes, but that doesn't necessaraly mean they won't work for your hunting/shooting. It really depends on what kind of performance you need for your situation. For normal decoy shooting the factory chokes will probably be OK, but you've got to pattern them to find out.

I haven't patterned all the ones you mentioned and they are probably all good, but the Carlson extended waterfowl chokes seem to be an affordable quality choke. FYI -- There's lots of marketing hype with this choke stuff so be wary of claims and stay away from the ported chokes.

I will post some pattern numbers I recently got from my duck gun that may be of interest to you.

Carlson’s extended chokes vs Remington flush Rem-chokes

The gun used was a Remington 870 SP 12-gauge 3" w/ 28" barrel and factory flush Rem-chokes (patterns average of five, 30" post-shot scribed circle, yardage taped muzzle to target, in-shell pellet count average of five, and choke constriction from bore gauge).

Remington factory flush Rem-choke dimensions
IC / .009" const.
Mod / .018" const.
Full / .037" const.

Carlson’s extended non-ported chokes dimensions
IC (Close Range) / .009" const.
Mod (Mid Range) / .018" const.
Full (Long Range) / .028" const.

12-gauge 2 3/4" Remington Express Steel load
1 1/8 oz of #3 Steel (168 pellets) @ 1,365 fps

30 YARDS
Remington IC / 115 (68%)
Carlson IC / 122 (73%)

40 YARDS
Remington Mod / 93 (55%)
Carlson Mod / 104 (62%)

50 YARDS
Remington Full / 66 (39%)
Carlson Full / 63 (38%)

My observations:

First off, I want to say that I wasn’t really impressed with the LOAD'S performance from either of these choke systems. It didn’t seem to perform as good (percentage wise) as other steel loads I have patterned.
The Carlson IC and Mod chokes put 5% and 7% more pellets in the patterns than the comparable Rem-chokes so they did perform a little better efficiency wise. But, the Rem-choke Full put 1% more pellets in its pattern than the Carlson Full. However, the Rem-choke Full is .009" tighter constriction than the Carlson Full. To me, a .028" constriction is more like an IM, but Carlson can call it what they want. With larger steel pellets like BB or larger it may indeed be a better long range choke.

Most importantly, either load/choke combo would easily be effective at killin' mallards at the 30- and 40-yard distances as determined by CONSEP numbers, but they didn’t register very high pattern percentages for the chokes and distances they were tried. However, neither of the full chokes were capable of maintaining CONSEP pattern minimums at 50 yards for any duck size with this load!

The Remington chokes were more consistent from shot to shot but both choke systems seemed to distribute pellets equally even in the patterns.

If you don't pattern you don't really know what is going on with your load or choke!

Good luck.

Dear Joe Hunter:

Thank you for your in depth analysis.

I've never patterned a shotgun. I just relied on how well I powdered clay birds with it prior to dove season. So, I will follow your advice, and do so in the future.

What do you use for paper?

Your conclusion also resonates with me on another level.

I bought an Oehler 35 chronograph about eight years ago to check my reloaded rifle ammunition. I learned more about my ammunition's performance in 30 minutes with that chronograph than I knew from the prior 30 years of reloading.

Thanks again for the pattern numbers.

One more thought. I noticed that you were shooting a 2 3/4" shell in a 3" chamber in your 870. After perusing the Browning web page in the FAQ's section, they show about a 10% loss of pattern when shooting a 2 3/4" shell in a 3" chamber. This was at the bottom of the average, whereas the top of the average was the same, meaning that there was no difference when shooting a 2 3/4" shell in a 3" chamber.

Here's the link: http://www.browning.com/custom...na/detail.asp?ID=102

Sincerely,

Chris Bemis

Chris, I do a lot of patterning so I buy rolls of 48" wide paper from an industrial supply store. Just get what you can (paper or cardboard) but try and get 40" x 40" minimum size so you capture the shot swarm.

2 3/4" shell performance in a 3" chamber, just one more of the endless variables to shotguns. Just pattern what you shoot and don't get to caught up in trying to analyze why this or that happens. After all, you just want what works!

Good luck.