All Choked Up

Fitting a shotgun with interchangeable chokes is relatively new on the hunting scene, but the idea is far from new. During the late 1800s, shotgun designer Sylvester Roper developed short tubes with internal threads that allowed them to be attached to the muzzle of a shotgun barrel. Roper's invention attached to the outside of a barrel rather than inside, but otherwise it worked the same as the modern screw-in chokes we see today.

Through the years other devices that allowed the owner of a shotgun to quickly and conveniently switch chokes came and went. One of the more popular was the Cutts Compensator. It consisted of interchangeable tubes of various constrictions that screwed into the front of vented cage, which in turn was permanently attached to the barrel. My old .410-bore Winchester Model 42 skeet gun wears a Cutts, and its chokes work great.

Interchangeable chokes like those we use today have also been around for quite a long time, but the concept did not begin to be accepted by the average hunter until Winchester introduced its Versalite system in the Model 59 shotgun in 1961.

Today, it is virtually impossible to find a new shotgun of American manufacture that does not have screw-in chokes. In the eyes of most shooters, the modern choke has one major advantage over older designs such as the Cutts--since it screws into the barrel rather than onto the barrel it does not change the appearance of the barrel.

The advantage offered by the interchangeable choke system is obvious. Technically speaking, it is capable of transforming one shotgun into a battery of shotguns. Screw in a cylinder bore or light skeet choke and you are all set for shooting ruffed grouse in thick timber, bobwhite quail in piney thickets and for breaking clay targets out to about 20 yards.

Switch to regular skeet or improved cylinder and you have extended your range out to 30 yards, and that takes in a lot of hunting territory. Tighten the shot charge on down with modified or improved modified and you are all set for hunting ringneck pheasant during late season or reaching high into the sky for a mourning dove.

Screw in full or extra full choke and no turkey gobbler within 40 yards of where you sit should be safe. Install a rifled choke in your shotgun and watch your accuracy with slug loads improve by leaps and bounds.

So how many chokes do you really need? A friend of mine who shoots a lot of clay targets when he is not hunting says you cannot have too many, and he tries to prove it by using a battery-powered wrench to screw chokes in and out between stations at sporting clays.

I tend to be a bit more conservative. The 12-gauge autoloader I use most has only five chokes, and I don't recall ever needing more. Its chokes are constricted .005 inch (skeet), .010 inch (improved cylinder), .020 inch (modified) and .035 inch (full). The fifth choke has .055 inch of constriction, and I use it only when hunting spring gobblers with Remington's Hevi-Shot turkey loads.

I don't hunt deer with that shotgun, but if I did I would add a rifled choke to its battery. That same range of chokes also leaves little to be desired in a over/under or side-by-side double.