I just bought myself a Merkel that has a single selective trigger and it came with 10 Briley tubes.
My question is, which barrel do I fire off first as a right hand shooter if both chokes are the same?
Right hand pulls the trigger by the way. I am used to O/U where bottom barrel fires first.

The right barrel should fire first (barrel away from the shooter). Just wondering....but a SxS Merkel with tubes and a single selective trigger....what's the model and who put in the tubes??

FWIW, & it probably ain't worth much, assuming it's a game gun & (at least) by UK customs, you would usually fire the more open choke first at all game excepting grouse when you would fire the tighter choke first.

depends on what you are shooting at and how far. that's the one of the advantages of a double

It's a model 47E, part number, 70047E1.885P
Briley did the installation along with the series 26 tubes. They did a very nice job and no blow by whatsoever.I never been able to totally dust the clays at more then 50% of the time but now it's almost 100%!!!!!
This is going to be upland bird gun.

This Merkel will be used mostly for pheasants, french red leggs and Hungarian partridges.
Too NICE of a gun to take chukar though, I will have to my use semi auto, All of my shooting will be over pointing dogs.

Just curious, if you fire off right barrel first, won't that throw the gun off balance or make follow up shot more harder?

Single selective trigger is hard to get used to, such a small button for my fat finger!

I set mine up with a more open choke in the left and tighter in the right. (left and right determined by my position as I look over the barrels in a shooting position). I do it this way so under ideal conditions I fire the left then the right. I have a noticeably faster back on target time when I do it this way rather than right first, left second. I shoot Beretta 471s in 12 and 20 and selection of barrel is easy since they put it under my thumb on the tang safety. That's smart engineering.

PS. Im right "eyed" so the above should be the other way around for those who are not normal.

I have some double trigger guns instant barrel selection. some single trigger selector guns some single trigger none select guns

I gave up on worrying about what choke to select and fire the right barrel first.

On my guns is normally the most open.

Two many chokes gives too many choices! And you end up with changing chokes and not shooting!

The origin of the right barrel, the first to be fired being open choke and the left, the second to fire, being the chole dates from the time before driven game. The time when most shooting was still on walked up birds. So shooting birds "going away".

Thus the bird being closer when the first barrel was fired it was choked more open. As you pretty much know I'd guess. Most game is still shot like that in USA?

When driven shooting came in the habit of boring right open and left choke was quite well established. So it just carried on. Two triggers giving instant selection anyway.

But...and here I differ from SHIKARI...for thoe who shot a lot of driven game they would do, sometimes, two things.

Either use the left barrel, the choke barrel, FIRST to take out the rear bird of a group and then as the birds were nearer (or in fact just before overhead) use the right barrel second.

Or they have the gun bored pretty much the same in both barrels at maybe improved cylinder in BOTH even though the gun still had two triggers.

Or, but fairly rare, they'd have the gun bored reverse choke. That is the first barrel to fire bored choke (taking the driven bird far out) and the second barrel to fire, the left barrel, bore open (Taking the driven bird just before it was overhead).

Standard British combinations were 1/4 and 1/2 or in some guns TRUE CYLINDER and FULL CHOKE. Or is some driven game guns TRUE CYLINDER and IMPROVED CYLINDER.

The advantage that you have is that some cartridges pattern better with a tighter or looser choke than others.

I'd think that this would be an advantage if you wanted to tailor the gun to one particular cartridge.

I have 12 bore two side by side game guns. In one it is improved cylinder in BOTH barrels and in the other half choke in BOTH barrels.

I use them for driven. The half choke being if I want to use larger size shot or shoot duck.

Only in my 16 bore do I have different degrees of choke from one barrel from the other at 1/4 and 1/2.

As that, being lighter weight, is my choice for "walking up".

Irrespective of a selective trigger or changeable chokes, with an O/U it should be the lower barrel that is fired first as this minimizes the muzzle flip and allows the second shot from the upper barrel to be put on target quicker without have to compensate so much for the effect of recoil.

With a SxS double, the majority are fixed choke and set up with a more open choke in the right barrel and a tighter in the left and if a double trigger, the front trigger fires the right barrel and rear the left.

Not sure of the dynamics of a SxS double in terms of recoil I imagine both barrels will flip the muzzles the same amount as they are both in the same horizontal plane unlike an U/O. Because both barrels on the SxS are 'central' to the recoil pad in terms of alignment I expect that the left barrel when fired would tend to flip the gun left and then flip the gun right when the right barrel is fired.

In effect left and up for the left barrel and right and up for the right barrel. Hence possibly the reason for the popularity of the O/U now for both game and certainly almost exclusively for competitive clay target as you are dealing only with recoil in the vertical plane and less pronounced for the first barrel.

With the selection of chokes you need to do some work on a pattern board to find what will be best for the applications you intend the gun for.

In pattern board testing and field testing on clays and game I have found that in my O/U with a single selective trigger and invector chokes, 3/4 and 3/4 is best for DTL clay, SS and SS (close to cylinder) for skeet and for duck coming close when blind hunting small ponds or streams.
For walk up or longer range hunting of duck, quail, etc, I use 1/4 and 3/4, and change to No.9 shot for quail or even for these small birds use SS and 1/4 choke.

The 1/2 and 1/1 (full) invector chokes do not give good patterns in my gun so I never use them.

I learned on a double side-by Model 24 Winchester.

The rule was, more open choke first, the game is closer. The less common opportunities arise with the game more than 20yds away.

Rich

quote:

Originally posted by Norseman:

quote:

Originally posted by Norseman:
This Merkel will be used mostly for pheasants, french red leggs and Hungarian partridges.
Too NICE of a gun to take chukar though, I will have to my use semi auto, All of my shooting will be over pointing dogs.

Just curious, if you fire off right barrel first, won't that throw the gun off balance or make follow up shot more harder?

Single selective trigger is hard to get used to, such a small button for my fat finger!

Norseman I don't quite understand your point that the single selective trigger is hard to get used because of the selector button as you should not have to be trying to select which barrel fires first once you are on a hunt or shooting clays. Because you can set up your chokes to suit whichever barrel you wish to fire first you just select the more open choke to fire first. I rarely select a different barrel when in the field and if I do because of a higher approaching bird, I have time to do this. In saying this the pattern from my 1/4 choke is fine for longer range birds anyway. I also use a smaller shot size to give a good solid pattern. Believe it or not I have had great success over the years using my fast trap loads of 7 shot for duck and swan. A No 7 pellet in the head or neck of a swan from a good shot pattern will drop it easily.

For clay targets you need a good dense pattern as the clays are actually quite small in profile and unlike a bird where a pellet in a wing will bring them down, the clay must be hit well to visibly chip or break. This is the reason why I find 3/4 and 3/4 is ideal in my O/U for clays.

I agree with other posters that you should not get too carried away with chokes but you do need to marry the shot size, velocity and pattern your gun produces with the game or targets you intend to shoot. I have shot a lot of rounds over a chronograph and at a pattern plate to find the sweet spot of a few guns and this care and attention has definitely paid off in the field and on the range.

Norseman. If your shooting is pointing, over dogs, then indeed the classic combination of 1/4 (right or first barrel) and 1/2 (left or second barrel) is about right for what you need.

The only alteration would be how close will be the birds when your dog flushes them. If twenty yards then indeed 1/4 and 1/2 is about right.

If they are at thirty yards then I'd say go for 1/2 and 3/4 choke (right barrel, left barrel) in that order.

This will give advantage if you are using larger shot, say USA #6 or English #5 as with these sizes on a going away bird it is always pattern density that fails before shot lethality.

In best practice there is no recoil issue of the mount being disturbed as you should, in fact, take a fresh mount, just move the gun off the shoulder a fraction only, before that second barrel is fired.

After doing this a while, I'd say go with the more open first, but as a practical matter it's always seemed to me to make little difference.

On my guns there's not that great a difference between chokes and the two shots come so close together it doesn't really matter. The pattern distances don't get a chance to widen that much. And the majority of the time it's only one shot. And I kinda like, for no particular mechanically valid reason, to even out the action/barrel wear on both sides.

On my duck gun I use the same or almost the same chokes, skeet and IC, so it really doesn't matter there. I use those chokes because they perform the best with steel shot.

Shot size selection I find to be far more important than choke selection in waterfowling, once you've already gone with the more open chokes anyway.

Btw, I agree with Eagle about the lower first on O/U. It does recoil less which helps just marginally on setting up the second shot. But - I have for a lot of decades used O/Us of different makes (I shot an Ithaca a lot) and was pretty indiscriminate about which barrel first, and it made absolutely no difference in the long run. The barrel selector decision for me was largely a simple matter of preferring the selector (be it on the trigger or as part of the safety) operative from the right in case I wanted to do anything with it - being right handed.

Right handed, right barrel first? I am going to try trap shooting again with left first and right barrel first just to see which barrel throw me off balance more so REGARDLES of choke selections.

I am now going to fire left barrel first since the recoil is much more manageable.
Left barrel will be improved cylinder and right barrel will be modified.
I always thought the Englishman had it figured out since they created English Pointer's but
I proved them wrong when it comes to hunting over pointing dogs. I seems to recall
that the British don't hunt when it comes to upland game birds, they go "shooting" during
a driven hunt.
Reminds of a TV show where Queen Elizabeth was going hunting to served pheasants
for her International Royal guest, hunting? kiss my sweet white American ass,
Queen must've had like 30 human beings beating the bush with bamboo sticks, 10 English Springer Spaniels, 5 labs and 2 to 3 English Pointers. Guess what breed did all of the retrieving? Lab's of course.
What a joke!