16ga.com ~ View topic

I've often heard the expression, "Shoot the ammo that patterns best in your shotgun." This is true in the case of a fixed choke gun. If you do find a round that does it for you, buy several cases of that same lot and hoard them. The next lot of the same load may or may not be as good.

Enter choke tubes. the big advantage? Flexibility. Sometimes changing the choke by a few points more or less will do the trick and have that old gun perking along with the new lot of ammo just fine.

Case in point. Today I was shooting 5 stand at a local club that likes to set the targets on the longish side. I Usually shoot most 5 stand with a skeet (.004") and IC (.007") choke out of my Browning custom 30" barreled 12 ga. Lightning. I use a 1200 FPS 7/8 ounce #8.5 loads for the closer crossing shots and 1200 fps 1 ounce #8 for everything else. I manipulate the barrel selector as needed. Usually this is plenty.

At this club, I normally swap out to IC and Lt Mod (.013") and will usually do better with my usual loads. However, today, I did not have enough loaded rounds and bought some 1200 1 ounce Fiocchi loads to get by with. My first round was not a good one. I was not hitting the targets well. There were lots of chips and "moved" but unbroken birds. About half way through, I began focusing on mounting the gun perfectly rather than on the targets. Needless to say, things went down hill from there.

One of my friends seemed to think I was getting onto the targets when I focused on them rather than mechanics, but they just seemed to get through the pattern too often. So I went to a Skeet II (.010) and a modified (.017). Bingo!!. Next round was my best of the day. I was smoking them. All in all, I only increased the chokes by 3 or 4 points, but with this particular lot of Fiocchi ammo, That is all that was needed.

If you have a gun with choke tubes, Why not buy a few "in between" tubes
or have some rebored to the same effect. Then, when you seem to not be hitting your mark too well or in some cases, to fully (pureeing the game birds) you can easily move up or down 3 to 5 points of choke and find the sweet spot constrictionwise. Sometiomes a few thousanths of constriction either way will make all the difference in the world.

Guest

Makes sense to me, and a fine explanation of fine-tuning.

See now-I previously wrote EVEN 16GG IS OCCASIONALLY RATIONAL AND REASONABLE Very Happy

Just because one of the staff slipped me a Prozac with my afternoon Twinkie and milk, thats not cause to go ruining my hard earned reputation now. Geez!! Rolling Eyes

BTW, I was thinking about Terrible Ted's last post. I suspect the poor guy is beginning to ripen around the edges. One gun? Somebody get that poor man a comfortable chair near the fire, a blanket, and a cup of tea. He's all done I think.