Aftermarket choke confusion

[tomaddy525]

Good afternoon,

 

After having started home loading for my 12 and having my eyes opened to how good non-toxic loads can be, I am now looking into getting an aftermarket choke to give me that extra help to achieve clean kills at extended 'foreshore' ranges. However, all I have managed to grasp is that aftermarket chokes are hugely cartridge and gun dependent. It seems one bloke with his beretta, terror choke and steel gets great results, where, say, a different bloke gets poor results from his beretta, terror and ITX. So I'm in the position where I can't really see how to choose a choke any other way than flipping a coin, and being so expensive I'm reluctant to get one and find it patterns poorly.

 

My question is: how do I decide between Patternmaster, Terror, Kicks or Briley etc.?

 

I will be shooting large loads of large sized steel and 13g/cc hevi-shot from a 3 1/2" Browning Maxus.

 

 

[Gordon R]

You cannot decide with any accuracy. You would need to pattern each make of choke with your chosen home loaded cartridge - then stick to that recipe.

 

It's a non starter.

[Smokersmith]

Stick to the hevi and you'll not need any help with an aftermarket choke !

[fenboy]

I use a Briley light full and it seems to pattern everything I put through it well .

The HW does tend to pattern tighter anyway and I was getting 85% patterns at 50 yards.

 

Lots of people use one choke for closer range stuff and another for long range but I am happy sticking with the same one for everything.

[motty]

I haven't done much patterning, but I have had plenty of long range kills with a Briley Extra full through my Xtrema. I put any size of steel shot through it. The .655 Terror is too tight for fast BBs, but is very good with smaller steel and hevi.

[figgy]

I've used kicks in modified which is good for fast large shot. As I now shoot size 1 and smaller I've gone for the kicks full and it patterns well.

 

Read some good things about the Brierly wildfowl chokes. Terror have stopped making the tight chokes the foreshore shooters were using.

 

How far are you wanting to shoot as I regularly took Canada Geese at sixty yards with 42g BB mammoth carts with a Kicks Highflyer Modified choke. Friend has the gun and choke and uses it for fowling as I did.

 

What gun do you use and see if you can borrow some peoples chokes to pattern.

The kicks modified is around 1/4 choke for lead shot and the full patterns around 3/4 with lead carts in my beretta HP optima bored gun, wouldn't want it any tighter for steel.

Edited January 15, 2016 by figgy

[Maxus Hunter]

I have a maxus and use browning grand passage and browning duck commander ported chokes all made by briley, works for me,got mine from eBay USA for half the price especially if u get a couple at a time

[tomaddy525]

I use a Briley light full and it seems to pattern everything I put through it well .

The HW does tend to pattern tighter anyway and I was getting 85% patterns at 50 yards.

 

Lots of people use one choke for closer range stuff and another for long range but I am happy sticking with the same one for everything.

Fenboy, just emailed a retailer wanting to purchase the briley extended light full and he was adamant steel is not to be put through them, is this just typical over caution or are you fellas using a slightly different choke?

[fenboy]

Fenboy, just emailed a retailer wanting to purchase the briley extended light full and he was adamant steel is not to be put through them, is this just typical over caution or are you fellas using a slightly different choke?

I would say its over caution on their part , I have used mine for 3 seasons with no problems at all and it has had steel up to BBB through it as well as HW13 .

[Whitebridges]

Stick to the hevi and you'll not need any help with an aftermarket choke !

 

Agreed.

[motty]

Fenboy, just emailed a retailer wanting to purchase the briley extended light full and he was adamant steel is not to be put through them, is this just typical over caution or are you fellas using a slightly different choke?

Not Chris Potter, was it? Take no notice. My Briley extra full has been fine.

[Tony G]

As Motty says the chokes are fine for steel If you go on google and put in Briley light full for steel,some very interesting articles from Americas duck hunting websites come up

[kent]

I use a kicks modified it will outpatten the energy of bb steel as regards range.

 

I patterned it thought wow then started bringing birds down unconscious or lightly stuck around same ranges. Wound my neck in and got great kills

 

Gamebore mammoth 3" and super mags

[TONY R]

Good afternoon,

 

After having started home loading for my 12 and having my eyes opened to how good non-toxic loads can be, I am now looking into getting an aftermarket choke to give me that extra help to achieve clean kills at extended 'foreshore' ranges. However, all I have managed to grasp is that aftermarket chokes are hugely cartridge and gun dependent. It seems one bloke with his beretta, terror choke and steel gets great results, where, say, a different bloke gets poor results from his beretta, terror and ITX. So I'm in the position where I can't really see how to choose a choke any other way than flipping a coin, and being so expensive I'm reluctant to get one and find it patterns poorly.

 

My question is: how do I decide between Patternmaster, Terror, Kicks or Briley etc.?

 

I will be shooting large loads of large sized steel and 13g/cc hevi-shot from a 3 1/2" Browning Maxus.

 

 

I am not sure if the maxus is normal INV + or if its INV -DS , i know the new A 5 is DS, But anyway with your INV barrel on the semi auto i would expect the bore to be in the 0.732 to 0.735 area the reason i mention this is not all invector + barrel tubes are created equal, i run 425 waterfowl which is 0.730 so if lets say your maxus is like the golds or sx2s/ 3s and is a typical 0.735 or there abouts its going to be a few thou up on constriction compared to my 425 with the same choke screwed in.

So dissmising any barrel quirkiness and sticking to technical facts the maxus should throw a tighter pattern with the same choke as mentioned.

So simply buying a X choke tube is not as straight foreward as it first looks, If you look on brileys site it explains this clearly or did last time i was on there. Now some other loosely termed back bored barrels lets take the Remington pro bore for example, are prety uniform in bore diameter so this iregularity is not relivent to such guns. .

Now first establish what the acctual bore size is and start moving on from there, and as pointed out above ignore the paranoia of some importer distributors, and start to look at the options to get the best results from your gun.

So sticking with the briley options and talking plain not ported extended thin walled tubes, you want a constriction in the 0.720 to 0.710 area with the big steel you are aparently using in a 12ga, i think the tubes marked IM will give a constriction in the browning golds of about 0.714 and they pattern quite well, but i found this very bore dependant with the briley choke profiles, and you may need the light full this would apear to be bore out by some above recomendations.

Now there is more than one way of skining a cat as they say and the kicks high flyer ported and mod uses both some constriction and the fact it is ported to effectively check the wad on its bore exit ( restriction choke) working a little like a original pattertnmaster minus the spurs delivering some decent results in to the bargain.

Now the plain patternmasters of today and others like the wad wizard tubes are genuine restrictors with the spurs in the tubes doing the lions share of the work these acctual work very well, but do start to run into trouble when the speed gets much above 1550 ish FPS.

Now the shot size you are using can make life dificult too in the 12 bore and you may start to see the patterns start to fail at ranges over 45 yards this will get worse as the speed rises, at this point you need to start to look at more constriction or a diferent style of choke.

Keeping constriction sensible you have a few options best option here in my experience is Indian creek black diamond triumph in 0.710 its a straight ported tube and they work fantastic in invector +.

Another choke tube i had decent results with is the very similar to Indian creek tube the comp N choke tubes, you could try these if you wanted.

And of course last but not least the terror chokes, the .655 is a tight constriction for the 12ga and BBB and although i dont think the choke will give any trouble in the browning, i never found the tight constriction that clever with big steel.

In the terrors its my opinion you will get better results from the .675 for what you want to do and in fact i think its a good all around choke for the brownings and i never take mine out other than a clean.

Do look at the indian creek though i saw good results from that tube and one day i will try and taylor a few loads for it.

[hawkfanz]

have a look at breconretail they do carlson open season chokes for £23 each.that shouldn,t break the bank.i use these in my beretta and armsan

[tomaddy525]

Not Chris Potter, was it? Take no notice. My Briley extra full has been fine.

 

It was indeed him, can't believe the black oxide version is £10 more than the standard... Sharpie?

 

What I'm stuck on is.. If say my barrel is .735 and the briley light full reduces this to .705, surely this is still a lot more open than a terror .675?

Edited March 2, 2016 by tomaddy525

[TONY R]

 

It was indeed him, can't believe the black oxide version is £10 more than the standard... Sharpie?

 

What I'm stuck on is.. If say my barrel is .735 and the briley light full reduces this to .705, surely this is still a lot more open than a terror .675?

Brileys are an ok choke but they are not made the same way as terrors, if you used terror type constrictions in a briley i think you would have shall wer say PROBLEMS!. Terrors are IT! basicaly in chokes, but i will give Briley credit they do a good choke profile for steel, and some constrictions and GA chokes they produce work well, the 0.745 10 ga tube marked IM is for example is good.

[muncher]

Ive had and tried all types of chokes over the years ,and i like a 3/4 or light full in any extended choke these days and my reasoning is with the extended you can always get them out ,and you will not be upset missing birds on the extreme of your range ,but you will be miffed oFf on the close ones you miss .!!!

[tomaddy525]

Or can I do without the extended briley and just get a flush one?

[Tony G]

The extended chokes have a longer taper,hence why you can go tighter than with a flush choke

[Ttfjlc]

I use a kicks choke (full) based on the advice I got from figgy and what good advice it was! 3 pinks at good range using lightning 1's and mammoth 1's.

[TONY R]

I am a terror choke fan for good reason, they just keep on saving the day when you start to search for every bit of safe performance steel shot or any shot for that matter has to offer.

Plenty of lovers out there for the Terror tubes and haters too, I have seen what they can do and up to now i have seen nothing to touch them and thats with vertualy anything i have put through them.

A few videos here from accros the pond, not saying everything about the info is how i would do things or anything like that, but they do show a few facts about the 10ga terror tube he is using which do very much mirror my and others observations when using these choke tubes in a variety of loads.

 

12ga not terror chokes vellocityx patterns i think terror tube would have shown a fair improvement over what he got here.

 

10ga terror .720 reloads

10ga .720 choke

[Smiler23]

Good clips them, what is the lowest velocity you can fire steel at to ensure clean kills? He is firing some there below 1300fps, is that to low or ok?

[motty]

Good clips them, what is the lowest velocity you can fire steel at to ensure clean kills? He is firing some there below 1300fps, is that to low or ok?

At the start of last season, a couple of friends and I were out shooting inland ducks. One of us was getting good kills with a particular cartridge (can't remember what it was exactly). When we put them over the chronograph, they were only giving around 1100 fps. It surprised us.

[TONY R]

I concur with Motty and his observations with the lower speeds, they can be suprising how they can kill. And remember every combination of gun and load can throw up very different results to a seemingly similar set up.

I am just guessing but the lower speed probably threw some awesome patterns in his mates gun, and his mate must have been on the money with that gun, end result GOOD KILLS.

To try and answer answer your question smiler 23 it all depends on range shot size pattern density at that range and i dont know exactly wqhewrte the low speed cut of point is to be honest.

i think mottys mates 1100 over the chrono has to be getting there though, big shot could help as in the subsonic steel loads ( was a few on the metro barrel site years ago) utilise to try and keep efficient.

If you look around ther net there are a few forums DHC and shotgunworld that have a few charts on various threads and stickies showing penatration of various size steel shot various distances various speeds and its entertaining and puts the general performance of steel into perspective.

Lots of these charts have been put together by helpfull people from ballistics programes, a mate over in Doncaster has one called KPY and an older one i forget the name of now, these programes are good they show you more or less what you can expect downrange and i must say i dont think they are that far out and i often email him to run the numbers for me on KPY.

All this being said praising these technical inovations, the loads still have to pattern and at the ranges you want them to kill at, a 25 yard or 30 yard pattern is all well and good and a quick way of showing potential in new loads, but deep down you have no allternative but to pattern the load at the range you want to kill at . And if you are shooting long duck or flighting geese at 50 to 60 yards you have probably got some time and money to put in to get that load to pattern right whatever speed its chronoing at.