Mike_ESK

Titanium ones, simply because I liked the lighter front end but material should not make a lick of difference. I went to West Kent, Dartford, Willow Farm, several times with several ammo types, with several birds and you could to the yard measure out the 3/8 falling apart at 45 yard. Put the 1/4 in or the 1/2 and I'm back to hitting birds at distance. Just today, the variable today was the fibre cartidges. Attwood, JBD and a few others all swear by 3/4 and I can see why. My shot game wont be hindered by it, My long game will benefit from it. I spoke to someone who had the same chokes in a DT11, amazing breaks. AAA class shooter. The moment I put the others back in, back to breaking again. I 100% agree it is the user error in most of these instances. You could see from my card there were birds at distance that just refuse to break today, when I did chippy. Bring it in 5 yards and it was killed. I shot a 20 on the sportrap today dropped a pair, like a dunce, but 3 times there was a overhead bird that was borderline unshootable in the pairs. All those fair misses. I shall grab some plastic wad black golds for next week. Here is what Teague said

Beat him on the sportrap, not in the sporting, before anyone thinks I'm actually that good! The 694 does indeed have 380mm vs 450mm forcing cones. Something about that makes 3/8 in Teague spec chokes fall apart. I was using the Beretta chokes today in 1/2. I just found the fibre QS to be a bit meh in my 694 with 18.6 bore.

Of course, you are correct I could have missed. We all have off days. Just when you shoot 10k+ a year you get a feel for if a bird should break or not. You know if you are going to miss before you pull the trigger. Looking over my scorecard 3 out of 11 stands were pattern issues, I made changes to each shot to try to find the correct spot. My squad even commented I never looked off, nothing looked wrong, just it didn't break. When it did break a distant bird it was chippy, and by distant it was the same sort of distance the 3/8's fell off at possibly 5ish more to 45 yards. I've done testing with the 3/8's enough lately, all shooting long birds. But yes, I could of equally had a bad day. I do recall using them last year for a sim game day and thinking i should be breaking more birds with them. That sim day has sim pairs at 35-60 yards and I've not found a single fibre round that has performed at distance that plastics does with the 694. They are superb UP to a range for me it seems. What are your choke brands for the 3/8? What distances are you shooting out to with them? I should mention Teague even said that the 3/8 was not great o the 694 and to use 1/2 or 5/8

As title suggests, I was having issues with the pattern of my 3/8 chokes - Teague answered they were blowing out. So I bought some 1/2,s and they worked well. Well enough to put in a good score at a hard ground and I out shot King George himself at the sportrap last week. I've used White gold 7.5 28G for years, today I realised the boys gave me the quad seal ones instead of plastic wad ones. My god the patterns on these things are utter ****, blowing out and nowhere near the patterns than the plastic wad ones do. My observations with the 694 is it seems like it's a really solid gun, about 30k rounds through this one, I've noticed some odd behaviours. At range the pattern seems less useable, or seems to be super patchy for some reason. Teague said the Tribore system - the forcing cones, on the 694 was why 3/8 doesn't work after a point, it seems that the patterns fall apart much sooner than say on a 682 Gold E with the same cartidges. I watched James Attwood shoot the sportrap today with 3/4 out a 694, shoot a 98 at Willow Farm today and 24 on the pool shoot. I blanked whole birds today, all of them distant birds, guess I need to stick with plastic wads or go to 3/4 for fibre to hold together

No problem. To note I put in the 1/2's from Beretta and spanked birds at very very far distances, then went onto the pool shoot. Shot a 23 which drew with Brightman and beat the big man himself with a 22. They spanked me on the 100 but small victories!

Teague came back to me : Hi Mike, Thank you for your enquiry. Due to the Beretta Tribore system we would recommend using a 1/2 choke or 5/8. The 3/8 will start to blow the pattern, which is what you are seeing. best wishes The Team at Teague Precision Chokes

I should not off the 100ft ray tower highest driven and the other tower shots I took my 410 and with a full choke and 11g carts hit a 110mm clay 6 out of 10 times So I'm going to say skill isn't the issue but I think I know the issue now. As the taper of the chokes are one long cone the shot string is being dragged out "more uniform" means more spread per pellet. The gaps forming front to back must be vast on them, as it travels downrange it extends out. It must be so patchy it's simply useless. Which is maddening as it should hold better than 1/4. I've got some beretta 1/2 coming to see if they work better at distance. I don't fancy 3/4

I've reached out to them to see what they say, I'm so very close to going to buy some 1/2 Brileys from Chris Potter - only thing is they will be heavier than my titaniums and will need to rebalance my gun, which Im loathed to do.... 12 weeks for an order from the USA for some titaniums.... The amount of lead I've thrown at things since getting them would give me a good average of data, I thought I was just not finding the right lead but its really not the case. I will be going to west Kent shooting school Friday to do some testing but I'm sure im going to see massive gaps in pattern at 50m

They will be used for skeet practice only now as I can't trust them out to distance, they make my skeet practice that much better, then stepping back to 1/4 at 21 yards they are top notch, hell up to 35 yards they look amazing! Just after that I've not hit anything with them - not even a chip! 40 yards plus is seen on a lot of grounds now, because the level of competition has risen the birds difficulty must also. You will get 7 stands of anything from 10-30 yards and then some reall card killers. This week at willow we had a rabbit and 45 yard edge on crosser, an overhead and a right to left belly on 50 yard looper, a right to left screamer and a looper off the tower at 70 yards. They are coming more and more - when King George and Mr Brightman turn up you need something to seperate them from each other let alone classes. Look at the above images to see some of the distances thrown, at some of the smaller clubs in Kent, liek Martin Gorse you will never see them but at CPSA comps you will see them. Go on English Sporting youtube channel and you'll see their walkrounds of grounds to show you some of the distances. EJ Churchills threw a 65m edge on crosser after a dolly bird one year! Hit it once with the 1/4! I've been coaching a while and shooting even longer, which is why I am so confused about the fact 3/8s should be the gods choke but they seem to be falling off at a hard limit for me, whereas my very very well worn IC's are doing more heavy lifting at distance, they dont have a cut off for falling off! I have asked Teague if they could explain the behaviour of the choke and what I am seeing - I assure you I am not missing all these birds because technique! Yeah thats exactly why I think a tiny bit of cast (fat cheeks) will be irrelevant, I've shot this gun so much that I know the thing inside out. I've shot a teal on the way up at 50 yards, I've shot high driven towers with the 1/4's. Seems I might have to go to Briley for a distance choke or something. The 1/4 worked ok but I wanted the pattern to be a bit tighter at another 10 yards or so, getting single pellets on target isn't great but missing entierly is worse! I shoot sporting for pleasure, but skeet..... 2 times a week, reffing and coaching it, going for national team, nearly won the open a few times. I wish it was just for fun still!

That is EXACTLY what I think is happening with it, but as you say without data I cannot confirm, but it is without a doubt the feeling I am getting from them. It absolutely falls apart at that a very specific distance it becomes utterly useless. I think I will keep them for skeet practice, I shoot steel shot and the pattern density is rather good with them for practice still but I don't think I'll be using them for sporting. I am thinking the confidence with even tighter chokes isn't there anymore and when Ed solomn says "you don't need more than 3/8 on any sporting layout" I think there are several clubs like that but these bigger shoots it's laughable. Everyone is shooting 1/2 to 3/4 or more now and a cylinder / skeet for a rabbits If 3/8 has a crossing point at 35 yards, 1/2 will be about 40, 5/8 about 45 etc obviously I'll need to pattern them. It seems that single taper chokes have a draw back compared to Briley style chokes. Hell even the old Beretta ones in 1/2 I would shoot greenfields top pitch at 50 yards ok. Makes me wonder why I swapped out...

Here is some examples of shot distances / shots made with 1/4s successfully

Longer forcing cones should prevent that. I do notice something with the 1/4s is the pattern is a bit more airy than others using 1/4s they do not even truly nuke birds at skeet, they dust but its not inkballs I see with Briley chokes. Teague pattern theirs by using a long taper vs a taper and parallel segment, this means the shot string is more uniform but also longer slightly. I wonder if the 3/8 is dragging out the string? I shoot with Jamie Brightman and Henry Arnold a lot and they state the 3/4 and Full is the only reliable choke, which marries with Digweeds thoughs (his are more 3/8 than true full) and Jamie often shoots 96s at Willow Farm - we often spar well at skeet at Kingsferry. Atwood and Bradley Day also use 3/4 and I am beginning to see the need for something along those lines for some of these shoots now. If it IS gun fit that will show up on closer birds as a test I guess.

I've not yet decided on the problem being gun fit but logically it would show up before 45 yards, hitting edges of birds, rather than centering but I'm nuking things at 35-45 with my 1/4s, I can shoot the high tower at West Kent no issue, it COULD be the issue but all signs say the gun fits correctly, being the fact I shoot 10k ESK a year and 3000 ESP or so, I would notice gun fit issues. It is a conclusion I am leaning towards but until I get more data on the pattern I am not sure still. Also nominal, I have another Beretta gun I can try with them, 18.6 bore like the 694

West Kent & Willow farm I have measured the birds with google maps, 55m-70m on both grounds, hit with a 1/4 Teague choke, EJ churchills Beretta world shot 50 yard crosser with it. Not convincing breaks but I do it consistently and people with me had 1/4 on Sunday doing it. Just you get a 410 core of pellets out to there with 1/4 Nominal. Off the shelf from them. Exactly but You can see from my breaks 40 yard is good but past that it's simply not working. I've used half and half in the past, 3/4 sometimes. My only conclusion is gun fit, it's not pointing where i think it is and the point it matters is 45 yards onwards?

I have been using a set of titanium ¼ super extended ported in my Beretta 694 for about 2 years, very very happy with them, they shoot a great pattern, with quality kills in skeet and sporting, shooting out to fairly big distances and holding a good pattern out to 50-60 yards. I recently bought a set of titanium 3/8’s and for my skeet work (AA class) they are excellent, but I am noticing at sporting they are brilliant up to 40 yards. After that I barely have a pattern as I have tested with these chokes and it falls apart after about 40-45 yards. As I’ve been using the 1/4s for the last 30k birds, stepping to 3/8 I thought would be just a shade tighter, which patterning (with multiple cartridges) shows it’s a good pattern at a 30 yard mark indeed tighter, I cannot test on a pattern board at further distances with it, but it you can see the breaks you get at further distances they are not as clean as my ¼ at the same distance at 40 yards and my friends who were with me had Briley 3/8s, Beretta ¼ chokes and Teague 1/2 and ½ and all of them connected with the birds ok. I shoot 3 times a week, AA class skeet shooter and A in sporting so I am aware of things like gun fit causing issues as you tighten but my gun fits extremely well, I am a shooting coach myself and have had several professionals have checked it. I have put a few thousand rounds of different brands through them and find them to be ok up to 40 but after that they utterly fall apart. Is this expected behaviour from 3/8’s? I was led to believe they are the “gods” choke and is what most people choose to shoot these days but they seem to be worse than my 1/4s at distance bizarrely. I used to shoot Beretta own brand 1/2's and seem like they patterned better than "precision" teagues I feel like I need to go buy a set of Briley 1/2s or something now, the 3/8s are just not working at distance I went to a shooting school to "learn" the 3/8s thinking they would be just a little bit more than my 1/4s I use 2-3 times a week! But the 45-50 yard crossing bird I practice on I could not break, put 50 through it - couldn't hit it at all. I hit it 80% of the time, this weekend, all my losses were long birds. Not a technique issue, I have and shoot many long birds for practice weekly. It seems like the teague chokes are simply making massive holes in my pattern with 3/8's I cannot explain, as they would simply tighten only the edges of the pattern from 1/4 in theory, not causing this much grief!