Chokes matter?

20 gauge 2 3/4" 7.5 ic Early season. Late season modified choke with slow 5s. Shot string matters! all this patterning bs has me 😆. Static tests mean nothing. Shoot what you shoot best and don't think so much. Spend more time shooting. Practice more think less.
 
CluckNut said:
20 gauge 2 3/4" 7.5 ic Early season. Late season modified choke with slow 5s. Shot string matters! all this patterning bs has me 😆. Static tests mean nothing. Shoot what you shoot best and don't think so much. Spend more time shooting. Practice more think less.
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I assume you’re a fan of shorter shot strings? I think patterning is helpful, but being a better shot is the best thing a hunter can do…good advice. But easy to do both. If you don’t want to pattern, don’t….do what works for you👍 I’ve probably hunted with 8 different guys this season, maybe 10…pretty sure none have done any patterning, ever…none shot any clays this spring/summer/fall…wish they’d take more time to do some of these things, especially shooting clays…I hate seeing misses…especially easy misses. Thinking is good, as is practicing…not mutually exclusive activities.
 
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KEOutdoors said:
As far as hitting birds? Nope, open choke will not make you hit more birds unless you are really bad at shooting and are "missing" everything and just catching them with the edge of the pattern to begin with. Usually these are cripples.
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First off, tip of the cap to you for all the pattern work, I think it's great you tested so many load/choke combos. It's clear that you know what you've got ballistically in the equipment you hunt with. I do respectfully disagree with the blanket statement made above. Is it true some of the time? Of course. If you're really bad at shooting or perhaps as we all once were new to the endeavor, chokes are about the last thing you should worry about. Shooting fundamentals are always number one in my book. I would say in upland shooting, if you can obstain from blasting at far birds, more open chokes are in the sweet spot more often for where most birds are shot. As always, pellet count of shell, type of dog, habitat hunted, species of bird all play a part. Lastly I'll say the old maxim that a full choke either hits clean and kills or misses clean is a myth. Before a shot cloud from a full choke gets to its most efficient range and has started to open up, it is often a very dense core with a ragged fringe. There is very little margin for error here and if missed with the core the bird has a good chance of being crippled. There is no one single answer for any of this. Choke selection is something that will be debated and discussed for as long as shotgun shooting exists. Patterning, education, and experience afield all play a part in it.

And yes I've shot birds this year that were still blinking when retrieved. I'm an average shot. I do think over my chokea and shell selection, and try to maximize their effectiveness. I will say the number of lost birds has gone down a lot for me every season. Partly do to more experience field shooting, and also a lot to do with getting out of the dogs way and letting her do her thing.

If you like reading there's lots of good books on the subject. I just got a new one for Christmas, review to come after I finish it. But I gotta get through Moby Dick first.
 
KEOutdoors said:
Just one pattern to show is all, then I will leave the thread. Sometimes is good to look at a visual instead of just percentage #s. The duck is not real size, the whole paper is 48". Its maybe the size of a chukkar.

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That settles it -- everyone should pattern their gun/load and make sure it will work at the maximum distance they will open up at a rooster. If it does not look good on pattern/steel, the options are:

Reduce your maximum distance.
Shoot 1-1/4 oz of #5's instead of 1 oz.
Shoot again! Maybe even a 3rd shot! :)

And finally: switch to a tighter choke. IC works fine for an ounce of 5's in my 20-ga at 30 yards but, who knows, you might want more choke if you are going to stick with 1 oz of 5's.

6's give you a lot more pellets in the circle but I hate eating birds that have been shot with 6's so I do not recommend that.
 
Bob Peters said:
First off, tip of the cap to you for all the pattern work, I think it's great you tested so many load/choke combos. It's clear that you know what you've got ballistically in the equipment you hunt with. I do respectfully disagree with the blanket statement made above. Is it true some of the time? Of course. If you're really bad at shooting or perhaps as we all once were new to the endeavor, chokes are about the last thing you should worry about. Shooting fundamentals are always number one in my book. I would say in upland shooting, if you can obstain from blasting at far birds, more open chokes are in the sweet spot more often for where most birds are shot. As always, pellet count of shell, type of dog, habitat hunted, species of bird all play a part. Lastly I'll say the old maxim that a full choke either hits clean and kills or misses clean is a myth. Before a shot cloud from a full choke gets to its most efficient range and has started to open up, it is often a very dense core with a ragged fringe. There is very little margin for error here and if missed with the core the bird has a good chance of being crippled. There is no one single answer for any of this. Choke selection is something that will be debated and discussed for as long as shotgun shooting exists. Patterning, education, and experience afield all play a part in it.

And yes I've shot birds this year that were still blinking when retrieved. I'm an average shot. I do think over my chokea and shell selection, and try to maximize their effectiveness. I will say the number of lost birds has gone down a lot for me every season. Partly do to more experience field shooting, and also a lot to do with getting out of the dogs way and letting her do her thing.

If you like reading there's lots of good books on the subject. I just got a new one for Christmas, review to come after I finish it. But I gotta get through Moby Dick first.
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Call me Ishmael.
 
benelli-banger said:
If I can safely shoot at a hit bird a 2nd time, I almost always do…seen way too many
“dead” birds take off when they hit the ground.
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That's why I want my dog to go on the shot, if not before. We wing our fair share and they hit the ground running, but they don't put down very many steps before rocket-dog is on them.

My son winged this bird as we were walking back to the car two years ago, me lagging behind about 75 yards. When I got there Rocket was racing around the fall zone, but son told me he saw the bird run off to the north, into a 30 mph wind. He was out of sight in the tall grass before he could ground-swat him. I told him I'd wished there was a way we could tell Rocket where to look, but we had no choice but to let him try to work it out. Every couple of minutes we would glimpse the bird running out at 50, 60 75 yards. It did not look good.

But then Rocket picked up the trail and off he went north. He had that sucker in about 30 seconds, out at about 80 yards. Good boy!

A couple of weeks ago two roosters went up and I winged the one that went left but Rocket was watching/chasing the one that went right. (It's not a perfect system.) I just poorly executed an easy 20-yard shot. I sent him where the left bird had fallen but, nothing. No trail to follow on that one. So I guessed the direction the bird would run and walked that direction. Of course, Rocket raced to get ahead of me. Out about 100 yards from the fall zone he picked up the trail and ran the bird down, keeping our "lost bird percentage" at zero.

The problem is our shooting (at times). Tighter chokes are not going to fix that. More shot is not going to fix that. But the way we hunt, I don't really care if they come down running. They don't get far, and that is the part Rocket loves best.

 
Coach 20-Gauge said:
That's why I want my dog to go on the shot, if not before. We wing our fair share and they hit the ground running, but they don't put down very many steps before rocket-dog is on them.

My son winged this bird as we were walking back to the car two years ago, me lagging behind about 75 yards. When I got there Rocket was racing around the fall zone, but son told me he saw the bird run off to the north, into a 30 mph wind. He was out of sight in the tall grass before he could ground-swat him. I told him I'd wished there was a way we could tell Rocket where to look, but we had no choice but to let him try to work it out. Every couple of minutes we would glimpse the bird running out at 50, 60 75 yards. It did not look good.

But then Rocket picked up the trail and off he went north. He had that sucker in about 30 seconds, out at about 80 yards. Good boy!

A couple of weeks ago two roosters went up and I winged the one that went left but Rocket was watching/chasing the one that went right. (It's not a perfect system.) I just poorly executed an easy 20-yard shot. I sent him where the left bird had fallen but, nothing. No trail to follow on that one. So I guessed the direction the bird would run and walked that direction. Of course, Rocket raced to get ahead of me. Out about 100 yards from the fall zone he picked up the trail and ran the bird down, keeping our "lost bird percentage" at zero.

The problem is our shooting (at times). Tighter chokes are not going to fix that. More shot is not going to fix that. But the way we hunt, I don't really care if they come down running. They don't get far, and that is the part Rocket loves best.

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Rocket…I like that name!
 
Tomahawker said:
Oh! And the preserve required nothing bigger that 7 shot. We normally shoot 5’s.
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Since 7's or smaller (I assume you used 7-1/2's) are never appropriate for long shots anyway it strikes as especially dumb to shoot a tight choke in your situation. You have a jillion pellets, you may as well use them to fill up a SK pattern.
 
So I think after 5 pages of this thread we can sum it up to this:
It doesn't matter what's engraved on the tube, as long as it kills well at the range you wish to shoot. Only way to know that before you wound a bird is to shoot paper.

I've switched to full in the last month. Birds flushing between 30 and 40 yards about half the time. The ones that do hold I have plenty of time to really settle into my stance and swing. Modified pattern (Carlson's extended Inv+) was iffy, too many bird sized holes. Wasn't going to go looser with my choke since my 10 month old is still erratic on holding point, so I went tighter to a Full (Carlson's as well). Pattern is awesome, just tight. I was worried about blowing up birds, but two 25 yard going away birds, one 30 yard crossing bird, and one sub 20 yard crossing bird (Flushed behind me and flew past me) proved that I can be careful with my aim and have very edible birds.

More testing with the Modified next year, maybe I just had a box that my gun didn't like much. As a wise man named A5 once said, deader is better.

This is all with 1 1/4oz Boss 4's.
 
MNMEAD said:
So I think after 5 pages of this thread we can sum it up to this:
It doesn't matter what's engraved on the tube, as long as it kills well at the range you wish to shoot. Only way to know that before you wound a bird is to shoot paper.

I've switched to full in the last month. Birds flushing between 30 and 40 yards about half the time. The ones that do hold I have plenty of time to really settle into my stance and swing. Modified pattern (Carlson's extended Inv+) was iffy, too many bird sized holes. Wasn't going to go looser with my choke since my 10 month old is still erratic on holding point, so I went tighter to a Full (Carlson's as well). Pattern is awesome, just tight. I was worried about blowing up birds, but two 25 yard going away birds, one 30 yard crossing bird, and one sub 20 yard crossing bird (Flushed behind me and flew past me) proved that I can be careful with my aim and have very edible birds.

More testing with the Modified next year, maybe I just had a box that my gun didn't like much. As a wise man named A5 once said, deader is better.

This is all with 1 1/4oz Boss 4's.
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I suspect different ammo will pattern differently with the mod tube…🍻👍
 
I think I'm going to try my sweet 16 again. Old gun made in 58,with fixed full. I think I have some 4s.Not expensive shells.The thing is,it doesn't always cycle some shells when cold. My opinion is, that full is a difficult choke to shoot, unless you are used to it,and hunt a lot.I do hunt a fair amount, but I use IC in most of my guns.The little 28 has been shelved for now.
 
Shucks just go hunting. I started this thread because I was surprised and proud how well my son shot. I really don’t put much thought into chokes and I’ve never in my life asked someone what choke is in their gun. Generally speaking I’m not interested in guns that aren’t old. I am interested in a classic made in 58. Get em!
 
Tomahawker said:
Shucks just go hunting. I started this thread because I was surprised and proud how well my son shot. I really don’t put much thought into chokes and I’ve never in my life asked someone what choke is in their gun. Generally speaking I’m not interested in guns that aren’t old. I am interested in a classic made in 58. Get em!
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There is something about guns made before 1960.The craftsmanship is better.
 
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