Hunting with a skeet choke
- Thread starter jaytee
- Start date
berettadouble
Member
I use soemthing like it for the first couple weeks in my first barrel, sometime even CYL. If I didnt have two barrels I'd be hard pressed to go looser than IC though.
Michigan Gunner
Member
It Will Work
For the first five years I hunted pheasants in South Dakota, I did a lot of it with a Remington 1100 with a fixed choke skeet barrel. While it was a 12 ga a 20 would work as well. If you keep your shot 30 yards or less and use premium ammo you will drop them. One of the things I like about an open choke is that I hit all the birds that I should hit. By this I mean the ones in close.
Lock and Load!
For the first five years I hunted pheasants in South Dakota, I did a lot of it with a Remington 1100 with a fixed choke skeet barrel. While it was a 12 ga a 20 would work as well. If you keep your shot 30 yards or less and use premium ammo you will drop them. One of the things I like about an open choke is that I hit all the birds that I should hit. By this I mean the ones in close.
Lock and Load!
SetterNut
New member
LOL, What are you so slow that you can get a good shot of before the bird is 35 yards out.
Enough of the tit for tat.
If you hunt in an area with some cover and trees / plum thickets you can't let the bird get too far out or they have cover between you and the bird. A tight choke will get you a miss or a hamburger bird. You have to match your equipment to the type of hunting you are doing.
With pointing dogs I am walking out in front of my dog and flushing the bird. The birds are coming up close. If the dog flushes a bird you don't shoot.
OKIEGunner
New member
If you use a modified choke where I hunt quail, you’re going home hungry
I have shot an embarassing number of quail with a skeet choked 1100 Remington 20. I shoot a lot of unchoked classic age doubles, now. Prefer a little more choke for pheasants like true modified. This from an old brush busting bobwhite hunter. P.S. In 42 years, I haven't shot a dog yet, crippled, and lost a bunch of birds, or had to discard a bird shot to pieces either.
If you use a modified choke where I hunt quail, you’re going home hungry
When I grew up, the quail specialists had Browning A-5's with the barrels amputated at barely the legal limit, usually by hacksaw. They were brush busters, who wore thick leather long sleeved shirts and double faced brush pants, shots were probe and hope through the trees and brush, if a bird got out 25 yards it was gone, they didn't miss much.
Wasn't trying to stir the pot. Most bird dogs do collect stray shot from shotguns. I've never shot a dog out right. Open chokes over birds( pointers) you run that risk. And I've never blow a bird apart with a tighter chock. I don't need to shoot them Inside 20 yards. I was just sharing My opinion.
Where you hunt in the wide open God's country, with bigger native quail than bob's, that run like devils, I'd shoot a tighter choke too! Probably 6 shot as well.
Inside 20 yards...choke chosen matters little.
Shell chosen likely matters more.
Between 20 & 40 yards, one chooses based upon their own reaction times and experience with birds swatted down/fit for the table.
Choke, to me, is of less importance than pellet and number of them.
Certainly less than pointing the gun correctly.
Cylinder will kill more birds than one would guess.
Skeet is therefore fine, other than at the extremes.
Shell chosen likely matters more.
Between 20 & 40 yards, one chooses based upon their own reaction times and experience with birds swatted down/fit for the table.
Choke, to me, is of less importance than pellet and number of them.
Certainly less than pointing the gun correctly.
Cylinder will kill more birds than one would guess.
Skeet is therefore fine, other than at the extremes.
Rooster Roaster
Banned
Skeet is not enough choke for me.
SetterNut
New member
I might have come back a little strong, sorry.
But keep in mind there are a lot of different hunting situations, thats why there are different chokes, shells, and styles of dogs.
But about a dog getting shot. That is something that should never happen, tight choke or open choke, pointing dog or flushing dog.
My hunting partner and I may have as many as 5 pointing dogs down at a time. Only 1-2 of them are steady through the shot at this point. But even if they are all steady, you can not shoot a low birds. Its just too dangerous for the dogs. If people are taking shots at bird that are low are just asking to shoot a dog, or something else, they don't want to shoot.
A shot at a bird is not worth taking a chance of shooting a dog or something else.
If the bird is flying low, just let them fly off and go after another one. The hunter is responsible for the safety of the dogs, other hunters, and everything down range. :cheers:
SDJIM
New member
Indeed you should not shoot at birds that you can not see blue sky under. If you do you may do as another hunter did on my place this year, like shoot the LAND OWNER. It's considered not in good taste and it hurts ALOT.
Be careful out there.
bobeyerite
New member
I hunt with a 20 gauge O/U. Have used it for years. It works very well. Don't get hung up on chokes. Use the ones that work best for you.........Bob
onpoint
Active member
For Quail I can see a more open choke but not as open as some are inkling of IMO. I don't quit understand where this move to open chokes has come from in recent years. Try and find a gun of yester year with more then a Imp Cyl choke and even a Imp Cyl is dang near impossible to find much less a skeet choke.
I will say this, I have tried using a open choke for Ruff grouse, Pheasants and waterfowl along with a few other birds. What I have experienced is wounded unrecoverable (WILD)birds. Maybe for birds one has to stick your toe under their butts and boot into the air. Also, I find very few birds in the wild that just sit still, even under a pointing dog. They nearly always run and keep moving. IMO, more and more preserve hunting and pen raised bird hunting has lead to the influx of guners using these open chokes. To be honest, I can't imagine the holes there has to be in a skeet choked pattern past 20 yards. Then to try and have a killing shot on a bird the size of a quail at that distance or greater....hard to believe that can be consistently possible. I'm no quail hunter but they must be a easy bird to kill or that gives up when only hit by a bb or two. The wild pheasant and Ruff grouse I hunt. If you don't anchor those birds with several good hits to the vitals/bones. They immediately become a track star that can out run/hide from nearly anything. Give me a Mod choke and 5-6 or 71/2 and I'll kill nearly anything that flies. Have for near 40 years. To each his own and do what flips your trigger
I will say this, I have tried using a open choke for Ruff grouse, Pheasants and waterfowl along with a few other birds. What I have experienced is wounded unrecoverable (WILD)birds. Maybe for birds one has to stick your toe under their butts and boot into the air. Also, I find very few birds in the wild that just sit still, even under a pointing dog. They nearly always run and keep moving. IMO, more and more preserve hunting and pen raised bird hunting has lead to the influx of guners using these open chokes. To be honest, I can't imagine the holes there has to be in a skeet choked pattern past 20 yards. Then to try and have a killing shot on a bird the size of a quail at that distance or greater....hard to believe that can be consistently possible. I'm no quail hunter but they must be a easy bird to kill or that gives up when only hit by a bb or two. The wild pheasant and Ruff grouse I hunt. If you don't anchor those birds with several good hits to the vitals/bones. They immediately become a track star that can out run/hide from nearly anything. Give me a Mod choke and 5-6 or 71/2 and I'll kill nearly anything that flies. Have for near 40 years. To each his own and do what flips your trigger
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benelli-banger
Well-known member
My last hunt of this season wrapped up on 12/28, and I shot a gun I hadn't used for a few years...a beretta al 391 20 gauge auto...cyl choke tube in it...used #5 and #6 shot...shot 8 or 9 birds, did lose one, and it happened because I fumbled with the safety (forward of the trigger guard) and it delayed me in taking the shot....should have refrained from shooting, but didn't. For most of the past 10 years I have shot a skeet tube out of my benelli 12 ga...I sometimes put a light modified tube in late in the season, but I have just kept it in the last few years all season long. The past couple years I have been shooting S x S's more and more, and they are IC/M, although I just brought my newest one to a 'smith to have it opened to SK1/SK2, which I did to one of them two years ago...both are Uggie 16's....works well for me.