Beyond hunting turkeys with lead shot, I can't think of much use for this choke in a single-barrel shotgun, at least in my hands. I'm probably best off with improved cylinder or modified for grouse, pheasants, chukars and doves.
If I need to shoot steel for waterfowl, I'll go with a cheap 870 or a Nova.

I agree. I have several shotguns with screw in chokes and the full chokes are hardly ever used. I wanted to shoot a round or two of trap with a new Beretta 686 in 20 ga. so I installed the full choke in the bottom barrel and shot a 48/50 with the new gun. That choke hasn't been used since and that was quite some time ago.

I remember once about 15 years ago on a pheasant hunt in Kansas where it was a very cold and windy day. The birds were all flushing at long range, so I put light full and full chokes in my 12 ga. Beretta 686 for those long shots. Of course the next couple of birds fulushed at 15-20 yds. Since then I haven't used a full choke with the exception of turkey hunting.

It just depends. If you're a fairly good shot, then using full chokes on doves, especially passing longer shots means fewer wounded doves flying off. Personally when I was shooting more, I liked a full choke on doves because I liked to hear the "thwack" when you centered them.

Generally speaking I use IC and IM in my O/U for about 90% of my hunting situations.

I shoot older guns for all my hunting, loading non toxic shot for waterfowl. My old Ithaca 10 gauge 2 7/8" is choked pretty tight. It sure smacks ducks and geese hard. I don't need it that tight but I shoot it well. My upland gun is a Browning Sweet 16 with an adjustable choke. It doesn't spend much time on full but it's nice to have the option for late season birds and on the occasion that it goes waterfowling with me.

I like to squad once in a while with the trap shooting know it all on 16 yard singles and put in a full or extra full tube. Shoot some 1 1/8 ounce 9's and turn the targets into ink balls. It's a great way to mess with the know it all's head. Of course you have to be on or it doesn't have the desired effect.

Mart

Although I realize it is not so common in other areas of the country full choke and buckshot is very common around here for whitetails. Full choke also is a common choice for coyotes/predator hunting.

A lot of people used to hunt rabbits and squirrels with a shotgun.

I think that before the age of plastic wads it was more useful. With plastic wads it is too tight for most use. I have broken 25 straight at skeet with a cyclinder bore, a skeet choke, and an improved cylinder choke.

use it on turkeys and for hunting yotes some times throw in my ultra full for that.

For upland I use IC/mod in my doubles ic in the single barreled stuff, Mod for geese with steel shot

Bill specified single barrel gun, and I'll have to mostly agree with him. However, many .410's are logically choked full in order to extend the range of their small payload of shot.

Having one full barrel available to you in a double when pass shooting something like doves on a windy day isn't a bad set-up. Most especially with the smaller gauges. There is a Winchester 101 28 gauge in my family which is a 28" M/F, and it is deadly on doves about as far out as any shotgun in any gauge. The modified barrel offers ample pattern dispersion for closer shots, while the full barrel lets it compete with the "howitzer" gauge that the great unwashed tend to shoot at diminutive upland birds.

To get the best from any shotgun, fixed or variable choke, it should be patterned on the board with whatever ammo you will be using. I have done some extensive testing with various shotguns over a chronograph and on a steel pattern plate, white paint between shots for a clean plate. In my own Miroku O/U with invector chokes, 1/4 and 3/4 gave the most even and consistent patterns by far with the trap and game-bird load I used. 1/4 - 3/4 for game-birds and 3/4 - 3/4 for trap served me very well over the years. Full choke was really crap and 1/2 not far behind for poor patterning. Skeet chokes in this gun are excellent for skeet and one of the best mornings I had on ducks coming into a small creek surrounded by high vegetation was 25 birds in about 30 minutes shooting with the skeet chokes in both barrels, my poor retriever couldn't keep up.

Using the pattern plate to test effectiveness we made up spreader loads, cardboard crosses inserted in the wad, for my friends full choked Browning O/U which was a rather poor performer on game-birds with the fixed chokes. Eventually Winchester brought out spreader wads which made loading for this particular gun much easier.

I have related the story before but a friend (an avid duck and trap shooter) went out for a rainy afternoon creek walk shoot on mallards and had the best shooting he said he had ever had, in his words he seemingly could not miss. He left home forgetting to screw in a choke in his Winchester semi-auto after cleaning it. He related that even long shots consistently dropped birds like he had never achieved before.

Moral of the story, you can't really second guess what any particular choke will do with a particular brand and shot size of ammo. The pattern plate will dispel all myths and theories.

IMHO...tubes in double barreled guns is a waste of money. If you find the ammo that patterns well for your O/U or SxS, then IC/IM will kill everything in just about every situation...assuming you have practiced with double triggers or the barrel selector.

With semi auto shotguns, its a different story.

quote:

Originally posted by JonP:
IMHO...tubes in double barreled guns is a waste of money. If you find the ammo that patterns well for your O/U or SxS, then IC/IM will kill everything in just about every situation...assuming you have practiced with double triggers or the barrel selector.

With semi auto shotguns, its a different story.

Shooting clay targets sorts the men from the boys in terms of chokes in any gun as the clays in DTL, Skeet and the tiny clays we call bumble bees, require good even patterns of shot to be consistently effective in breaking these relatively small targets.
Quail as a game-bird are probably the closest to clay targets in terms of size but you can use a smaller shot size on them to get a denser pattern from any given choke whereas clay targets particularly DTL need a larger shot size and tighter choke to reach out. Good patterns on clay targets really do translate to good patterns and better success on game-birds too. I have proved that to myself after spending my earlier shotgunning years right from a youngster with a 410, a 28 gauge and then onto 12 gauges using a range of fixed choke guns with supposedly the best shot size for ducks #4 & 5.

Once I got into trap shooting and testing various guns and chokes on the pattern board, my competition shooting and game bird shooting took a huge leap in success.

Chokes in double barrels most definitely do play a part but the effectiveness of patterns of the different chokes need to be confirmed on a pattern board or can be done in the field by trial and error if the game-bird hunting is consistent e.g. quail and pheasant over dogs.

The old time gun makers used to pattern their guns on plates and ammunition makers have spent many R&D hours and dollars on producing cartridges that supposedly produce better patterns than their rivals. Having a choice of choke tubes in a gun does allow further adjustment by the shooter for his type of shooting and the ammo he is using.

Full choke are ideal for hunting over medium range flushing breed of dogs.
If you hunt over pointing breeds of dogs, then all you need is improved cylinders or skeet tubes depending on well your pointer is trained to be steady.
When I hunt chukar, french red leggs or hungarian partridge and if it is windy like 25 MPH, I will opt for full choke every time. I love the options of changing choke tubes depending on the weather conditions and which dog am I hunting over.

I love full choke shotguns!

I even use them on skeet!

I did all my dove and skeet shooting by using a 410 Browning over/under.

Like Gatogordo said, it just requires a bit more consistent shooting.

A friend was a director at HOLLAND & HOLLAND in London.

Whenever I was there, we used to go pigeon shooting. He preferred low brass ammo in an open choke, and used to laugh at me asking for RWS SEMI-MAGNUM ammo and a full choke gun.

But, I was the only one bringing those high flying wood pigeons down!

One of his favorite sayings was " damn! If I shot that ammo I would need a surgeon to look at my shoulder!"

When he came to Dubai I had to do a lot of persuasion to get him to shoot some my rifles.

I had a .244 H&H Magnum rifle made by H&H.

As he never agree to shoot my 300 Weatherby Magnum, I thought of trick to play on him.

I formed some cases from the 300 WEATHERBY to the .244 H&H.

After he had fired a few rounds, I said to him "Jeremy, did you know that you have just fired 300 Weatherby Magnum ammo in that rifle?"

He looked at the headstamps and said "DAMN!HOW DID YOU THAT!"

Saeed, we know exceptional shotgun skills run in your family.
No so much in mine ...

Bill,

Walter is an Olympic skeet shooter - he was in the German Olympic Skeet Team.

We shot a lot of skeet here in Dubai together, and I cannot ever remember him beat me.

He used to say that I do everything wrong, but break the targets!

According to him, I stand wrong, I hold the gun wrong, I used the wrong - middle - finger on the trigger, I normally talk and laugh at the same time as I shoot!

I still beat him!

Know what the secret is?

I break every target.

We used to go the municipal rubbish dump, and shoot flying seagulls with rifles.

We used .220 Swift rifles on them.

I used to hit quite a high percentage, and he never managed to hit a single one!

We shot so much with shotguns - using full choke all the time - which I think has helped us as a family to become good at it.

quote:

Shooting clay targets sorts the men from the boys in terms of chokes in any gun

And here I thought we were talking about hunting.

quote:

Originally posted by JonP:

quote:

Shooting clay targets sorts the men from the boys in terms of chokes in any gun

And here I thought we were talking about hunting.

Yes we are but clay target shooting with targets consistent in construction, speed and distance soon sorts out which chokes work best in a gun.

A poor patterning and inconsistent shotgun on clay targets sure as hell won't improve on game. A good sporting clay gun will also prove itself on gamebirds.

Bill/Oregon,
what breed of dogs do you plan on hunting over that's makes full choke a concern?

Full choke in a single barrel is a legacy of the fact that whilst you can take choke OUT you can't put it back in. OK I know you can with a recessed choke and etc., but generally you can't.

So these things would have come full choke from the factory so that individual buyers could have them taken out to what they want. I suppose?

First these are the days when a full choke single barrel might be the only gun someone might be able to afford. So it may have to "double up" for all tasks but a lot of the time for GROUND animals at long range. Think deer, rabbits, stray dogs, etc., etc..

So full choke gave it reach as by second point conjectures...

Second in days of old some buyers wanted to see in the advert a diagram of the pattern at thity or forty yards. The tighter it shot the harder it hit and all that stuff.

So again factories made these full choke so that XXX's single barrel shot tighter than YYY's single barrel so it was, somehow, a "better" gun as it hit harder!

However full choke is useful with 1 1/4 ounces of English 7s (that USA 7 1/2 or 8) for blasting crows' nests out of high trees to kill the sitting mother crow and the eggs or chicks therein.

The typical gamekeepers task in the close season. It would also (on those estate's that allowed it) give a killing pattern on a fox or a marauding stray dog or cat.

But generally I also don't think that it is much use. Except, maybe, large size shot...think buckshot...on deer and men.

But as Robert Churchill the gunmaker (I think) said. Shooting is like billiards (or in US pool)...it is the series of easy shots that make up the big scores.

So less choke means more hit means a bigger tally of birds shot.

The "Black Prince" Maharaja Duleep Singh or Elveden Estate used full choke in his game shooting. But was a very accurate shot. Accounts talk of how he always shot for the bird's HEAD rather than its body.

You can Google him.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
Bill,

Walter is an Olympic skeet shooter - he was in the German Olympic Skeet Team.

We shot a lot of skeet here in Dubai together, and I cannot ever remember him beat me.

He used to say that I do everything wrong, but break the targets!

According to him, I stand wrong, I hold the gun wrong, I used the wrong - middle - finger on the trigger, I normally talk and laugh at the same time as I shoot!

I still beat him!

Know what the secret is?

I break every target.

We used to go the municipal rubbish dump, and shoot flying seagulls with rifles.

We used .220 Swift rifles on them.

I used to hit quite a high percentage, and he never managed to hit a single one!

We shot so much with shotguns - using full choke all the time - which I think has helped us as a family to become good at it.

Saeed, like your Walterhog bullets you have probably designed your own wads for loading your shotshells, they just need to hold one pellet

Eagle77
Are 25 birds a day still the limit in New Zealand or
that was in the old days?
Is lead legal over there or non toxic now a days.
Unless its a rare or expensive shotgun no reason not to
buy it if it has a full choke. Easy enough for a smith to
open it up.

quote:

Originally posted by brad may:
Eagle77
Are 25 birds a day still the limit in New Zealand or
that was in the old days?
Is lead legal over there or non toxic now a days.
Unless its a rare or expensive shotgun no reason not to
buy it if it has a full choke. Easy enough for a smith to
open it up.

Bag limits for licensed game birds varies from district to district, the maximum that I'm aware of for duck is 20, as it was when I shot my 25. On that day I just lost count as my dog had not retrieved them all before I ran out of ammo (had a hunting partner with me early on but he got bored when there was no action so went to shoot somewhere else and took most of our ammo with him).

Our non-toxic shot rules are a bit complicated although there are moves a foot to make it a blanket regulation that non-toxic shot must be used for all game bird hunting and in all gauges.
At the moment you have to use non-toxic shot in a 12 or larger gauge if shooting within 200m of a water body wider than 3 meters. You can use lead in these gauges when shooting everything else other than the duck species, swan, and our native pukeko bird or if shooting these birds more than 200m away from bodies of water >3 meters in width.

You can use lead in the sub-gauges as they are called (<12G) for all game bird hunting anywhere (at the moment but this is likely to change in some or maybe all districts).


The law is fairly specific in terms of what ammo you are carrying. You cannot have both lead and non-toxic in your possession when hunting duck near water, you may have lead ammo back in your vehicle if you can show intention to shoot in other areas where lead would be legal. You can have lead ammo in your possession near water if it is obvious that you are hunting pheasant,quail etc i.e. it would have to be in an area where these game birds are usually hunted and shot size and chokes would likely be used as indicators of your intentions by the Wildlife Ranger or Police Officer if they were in doubt of what you say you are hunting.

Wildlife Rangers and Police Officers were out in force in most areas over the opening weekend of this year's game bird season just finished, checking on compliance with bag limits and non-toxic shot.

It all sounds a bit complicated but most shooters now just use steel shot in their 12 gauges for all duck hunting while a minority of others use the sub-gauges with lead. Because sub-gauge use is only a minor player amongst duck hunters the powers that be have accepted that the issue of lead poisoning from the low use of sub-gauges is not worth worrying about. Also the sub-gauges taken on ducks are more likely used by kids (accompanied by gun licensed mothers/fathers/brothers/sisters) who would not be firing off high volumes of this ammo anyway.

quote:

Because sub-gauge use is only a minor player amongst duck hunters the powers that be have accepted that the issue of lead poisoning from the low use of sub-gauges is not worth worrying about

The issue of lead poisoning is most likely not a issue from other gages also.

Sounds like they brought into the poor study done in the US concerning lead shot.

Most likely just repeating garbage that anti's and others repeat over and over.

Eagle27
Thanks for the response
You have a beautiful country
Always wanted to visit

Lots of squirrel hunters who hunt squirrels with a shotgun prefer a full choke. Nothing like a full choke and a load of 6's to roll a squirrel out of the top of a tall tree.
joe

Used my 30" full choke in my Mossberg 500 to devastate Snow geese here in Texas when lead was in. Would really bust their ass. Not a screw in. Have 3 barrels for it, 28" mod and 18' bore choke.

ever hunt Turkeys or Geese?

Idaho Sharpshooter,
Full choke and steel shot don't fare well for geese, however lead shot and full choke for turkey are ideal.

Norseman,

let me tell you about bismuth shot someday...

Rich
just say no to steel

Sometimes a thirty yard pheasant can be considered low... Go to 45-55+ yards and you will soon find a use for a full choke...

My 20ggame gun is choked full and three quarter, and works just fine.

K

Trap shooters (especially the good ones) swear by the full choke.

I hope Bismuth has improve because when it first came out, the shot would powderized the breast meat.

I'm running Full/IM in my 20 gauge Bobwhite with #5 Turkey loads.

I have a friend whose son is on the University of Kentucky shotgun team, and is currently training for the Olympics. He uses full chokes of both his k-80's exclusively in trap, skeet, and wobble. Shooting against that kid will make you want to sell guns. Or throw them in the river.

quote:

Originally posted by Shootshellz:
Trap shooters (especially the good ones) swear by the full choke.

I break more birds at trap with IM than full, at least at 16 yards,and have even used IM at 27 yards. I think modified might be better for 16 yards but have not yet given it a full trial.

Also, I use 1 oz. of shot instead of 1-1/8 oz.

There is one main benefit to a full choke. It keeps the pattern denser at a greater distance from the gun. The biggest disadvantages to using a full choke are that it makes a smaller diameter pattern and it causes greater deformation of shot pellets. Deformed pellets lose velocity quicker and fly less straight than rounder pellets. Pellet deformation can be reduced by shooting very hard shot and by shooting lighter loads at lower than maximum velocities. Unfortunately, well formed, high-antimony shot costs more than low quality, low antimony pellets. As a result, the best shells for use in full choke guns tend to be more costly premium shells. Anyone shooting the cheapest, heaviest loads available through a full choke at distant birds is working against himself.

Many people mistakenly think that a full choke means the pellets will hit "harder". But the truth is that a pellet going out the muzzle at 1300 fps from a full choke will fly the same and hit with the same energy as a pellet going out the muzzle at 1300 fps from an unchoked gun. That is, all else being equal. If the pellet coming out the full choked gun is more deformed than the pellet from the unchoked gun, then it will loose its velocity and energy more quickly. Tighter chokes and heavier and faster loads cause greater pellet deformation.

Most people choose a choke based on the desired pattern diameter. But that is not the best approach. Instead, the choke should be chosen by the density of the pattern desired. For example, a 40" diameter pattern of #8 will be relatively dense, little distance will separate the individual pellets. But, a 40" pattern of #5 will have a greater distance between the pellets. If that distance is too great to insure good hits on the game, then a tighter choke should be used to increase the pattern density. The object should be to shoot a pattern dense enough to reliably put enough pellets of appropriate size into the bird or target at whatever distance it is being shot.

I will say that I have had some heated discussions with people who believe that the only way to kill a pheasant is to use a 3" magnum shell with 1-1/4 ounces of #4. I will state now, as I have often stated before, that is nonsense. Some insist that you must use that sort of load to shoot pheasants at 50, 60 yards and beyond. Okay, I will grant them that in such an extreme but, honestly, how many are shooting pheasants at 60+ yards and how many really should be? Aside from extremes, consider that the common load for generations of pheasant and grouse shooters in the UK was 1 oz, 1-1/16 oz, or 1-1/8 oz of British #6 shot, the equivalent of US #7. Times have changed. Today, many, perhaps most, British shooters have stepped up to shooting UK #5 shot, the equivalent of a US #6. And the British are shooting at driven birds, regularly flying fast and high.

My personal choice for pheasants is IC or MOD with 15/16 oz or 1 oz of #7-1/2 or #6 shot depending on terrain and the gun I am using. I very seldom lose a bird and when I do it's because I missed. I don't shoot 50 and 60 yard birds but I do shoot 40 yard birds without hesitation. I run into bird shooters who don't believe me. They insist that even their magnum loads of #4 and #5 will often cause the loss of a crippled bird so shooting standard loads of #7-1/2 and #6 is a joke. When I ask them what choke they use the answer is the same - Full. I try to explain to them that they need a full choke to keep their patterns dense enough with the big shot they are using. But the result is a small diameter pattern and they are often crippling birds hit with pellets outside the main pattern area. By using smaller shot and a more open choke they would be easier to keep the birds in the main part of the pattern and the pattern would still be tight enough to deliver multiple pellets to the bird. I also explain that they are fighting against themselves by shooting magnum loads of lead when they don't need to. It doesn't matter with steel because steel pellets won't deform, but lead pellets do, and they deform much more in magnum loads. Occasionally, I win one over but most continue to eat up the tripe the big ammo companies dish out. After all, how can one company have better shotgun ammo than another company unless they make it bigger, heavier, and faster than the competition?

If you are as good as Saeed and can always put the middle of a full choked pattern from a .410 on the birds then more power to you. The vast majority of us cannot.

Here is a link to a wonderful three-part article discussing the merits of choked bores and cylinder bores. It was written a long time ago by a very well known sportsman who shot thousands upon thousands of birds. The guns have changed but the birds are the same.

THE MERITS OF CHOKES AND CYLINDERS


There is more on the subject here:

7-1/2 AS A SHOT SIZE CHOICE FOR PHEASANT SHOOTING

~

Norseman, when I went after geese with steel shot I found that the MOD choke gave extra, extra full patterns with BB size shot.. Then I thought about turkey .Why not head shots on geese ? Worked fine with rarely any shot in the body .Hunting on a river from a canoe !

I agree, why not.

I use full chokes for practice on the skeet field and switch to cylinder bore for competition.
Works for me.
For all my hunting, except turkeys, I have no use for a full choke any more.
My 2 cents,
Zeke

I use FULL/FULL for dove hunting on my .410's and 28's It makes for a lot less cripples.