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gaffertoo
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What sort of clays are you shooting, Sporting, DTL, skeet? Basically as a beginer you will either hit or mis. as with any shooting if you are spot on then choke dont really matter. Middle of the pattern is middle of the patern but its all down to vision, speed, movement and focus on the target.

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If it's general sporting clays and not one extreme or the other - skeet or DTL - and you get on with your existing gun, I'd be inclined to open it out to, say, something like 1/4 by 3/4 or Imp by 1/2. This would then, if applicable, also be well suited to live quarry. More often than not, if a particular choke doesn't quite suit a specific discipline simply changing the cartridge can rectify that. Unless you want another gun or two, then this would also be the cheaper option.

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Guest cookoff013

dude, it aint the choke that does the shooting.

i shoot full / full 90% of the time, 100% clay shooting with full full. now i`m not an awful shot.

i love shooting #9s in this combination.

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dude, it aint the choke that does the shooting.

i shoot full / full 90% of the time, 100% clay shooting with full full. now i`m not an awful shot.

i love shooting #9s in this combination.

 

+1 please dont get wound up by chokes, its irrelevant if you put the pattern on the target. Gun fit is far more important so better buy a gun on the basis of how is fits you than the choke config.

 

Personally I think chokes are the work of the devil, more space has been used up on this and other sites discussing them and more confusion caused than any other shooting device!

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Guest cookoff013

 

+1 please dont get wound up by chokes, its irrelevant if you put the pattern on the target. Gun fit is far more important so better buy a gun on the basis of how is fits you than the choke config.

 

Personally I think chokes are the work of the devil, more space has been used up on this and other sites discussing them and more confusion caused than any other shooting device!

too true,

what chokes do you use? :whistling::lol:

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Just started clay shooting and my gun is 1/2 and full and I see near me there a gun up for sale a 1/4 x 1/4 also one for sale at skeet and 1/4 ,now with in mind what would you do or would choose .I use 7.5s carts

Any idears on this please...pops

 

First of all, pattern your gun at 40 yards and see what it actually shoots with your normal cartridges (fibre shoot larger patterns than plastic generally in the cheaper end of the market), you might well be surprised.

 

Once you know what you have got, then have a think about it, if doing just skeet, it might be worth looking at 1/4 and 1/4, but for sporting or general shooting, there is little wrong with a nominal half and full choke.

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Thanks chaps ,its just a small club for Sunday mornings not too formal but its only 30 clays ,so i'll stay with it for now ,thanks chaps 1/2 and full will do for this old un but I think carts of a number 8 would help a bit ,we will see ,thanks ,pops

Edited by gaffertoo
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+1 please dont get wound up by chokes, its irrelevant if you put the pattern on the target. Gun fit is far more important so better buy a gun on the basis of how is fits you than the choke config.

 

Personally I think chokes are the work of the devil, more space has been used up on this and other sites discussing them and more confusion caused than any other shooting device!

 

What sort of clays are you shooting, Sporting, DTL, skeet? Basically as a beginer you will either hit or mis. as with any shooting if you are spot on then choke dont really matter. Middle of the pattern is middle of the patern but its all down to vision, speed, movement and focus on the target.

 

 

1/4 &1/4 or skeet & 1/4, not a lot of difference in real terms, pick the gun that fits you or feels the most comfortable when you mount it.

 

 

dude, it aint the choke that does the shooting.

i shoot full / full 90% of the time, 100% clay shooting with full full. now i`m not an awful shot.

i love shooting #9s in this combination.

What I simply can't understand is why when so many say that choke is of no consequence when/if the shooter proverbially 'does his bit', are there so many guns manufactured with multi chokes as standard and such a roaring trade in after-market versions?

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Thanks chaps ,its just a small club for Sunday mornings not too formal but its only 30 clays ,so i'll stay with it for now ,thanks chaps 1/2 and full will do for this old un but I think carts of a number 8 would help a bit ,we will see ,thanks ,pops

I shoot full & half at clays, hitting a clay bang on with full choke totally destroys it, on a good day I use 28g 7.5s, plastic was, if my shootings having a bad day I pop back to the motor and grab some 28g 9s in fibre wad, if things don't improve after that I go home 😂

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What I simply can't understand is why when so many say that choke is of no consequence when/if the shooter proverbially 'does his bit', are there so many guns manufactured with multi chokes as standard and such a roaring trade in after-market versions?

if you have a sporting average of over 85% use tight chokes because your good enough. if you dont open up because you need all the help you can get.

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What I simply can't understand is why when so many say that choke is of no consequence when/if the shooter proverbially 'does his bit', are there so many guns manufactured with multi chokes as standard and such a roaring trade in after-market versions?

Like many things in life people say one thing and do another. When I'm reffing at a registered sporting shoot of 150+ entries I might see 2 maybe 3 people change chokes - even when my targets are much closer or further than the last ones they shot and they have box full of assorted chokes to choose from. The reality is that that the kill zone of the pattern doesn't change very much between say 1/4 & 3/4. All that really changes is the fringe of the pattern which can't be relied on to break the clay. Some folks in America performed choke pattern tests and demonstrated 3 dimensionally that a 1/2 choke only gives up an insignificant amount on close targets to a 1/4 or SK and virtually nothing at all on distant targets to a Full choke. That's why many sporting shooters shove a 1/2 choke in each barrel and leave them alone.

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There is a lot of rubbish talked about chokes so people are accused of overthinking chokes but that doesn't mean under thinking is the right answer either.

 

Simple facts are changing chokes is not going to change a 60 ex 100 into an 85 ex 100.

 

However chokes do have the potential to cost or gain you clays regardless of ability, how many, if any, on a given day no one knows.

 

Shooting edge on clays at distance with Skeet choke is going to cost you the odd clay if you shoot often enough at some point. Shooting full choke at Skeet ranges is also going to cost you targets if you put enough cartridges through the gun.

 

If you miss by feet it matters not but there are times we are only just off where a tighter choke would have had enough density to break the clay at distance where Skeet won't or vice verse if closer.

 

Picking the right set up for your head is the best option, but we all have different opinions in our head as to which is best, it's the reason there is such a trade in aftermarket chokes and muti chokes.

 

But it's not going to gain you more than an odd clay on any given day and most days non at all. But I have lost comps or prize money by one clay plenty of times so I do consider choke changing on bouncing rabbits or low driven to help my odds.

Edited by timps
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Like many things in life people say one thing and do another. When I'm reffing at a registered sporting shoot of 150+ entries I might see 2 maybe 3 people change chokes - even when my targets are much closer or further than the last ones they shot and they have box full of assorted chokes to choose from. The reality is that that the kill zone of the pattern doesn't change very much between say 1/4 & 3/4. All that really changes is the fringe of the pattern which can't be relied on to break the clay. Some folks in America performed choke pattern tests and demonstrated 3 dimensionally that a 1/2 choke only gives up an insignificant amount on close targets to a 1/4 or SK and virtually nothing at all on distant targets to a Full choke. That's why many sporting shooters shove a 1/2 choke in each barrel and leave them alone.

Yep, this is a clay pigeon thread which I don't do so won't comment. However, if it were live quarry and using the examples given, the kill zone pecentage increases by some 7.5% which is a fair jump from 29.9 whereas the pattern fringe changes by just some 2.5%. The figures being for 1/4 and 3/4 at 40 yards.

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Personally, I train with full-full. I'd rather know that I'm not on it if I'm not, and know I need to improve that. I even train at skeet with full/full, and I did my first 25 like that. To my mind it's good practice; so that if you want to start counting, just put 2 1/2 1/2 as Westward says and you'll benefit from the 'frindge' of the pattern in case you are not perfectly on it.

 

Well that's my theory anyway, I like it :)

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There is a lot of rubbish talked about chokes so people are accused of overthinking chokes but that doesn't mean under thinking is the right answer either.

 

Simple facts are changing chokes is not going to change a 60 ex 100 into an 85 ex 100.

 

However chokes do have the potential to cost or gain you clays regardless of ability, how many, if any, on a given day no one knows.

 

Shooting edge on clays at distance with Skeet choke is going to cost you the odd clay if you shoot often enough at some point. Shooting full choke at Skeet ranges is also going to cost you targets if you put enough cartridges through the gun.

 

If you miss by feet it matters not but there are times we are only just off where a tighter choke would have had enough density to break the clay at distance where Skeet won't or vice verse if closer.

 

Picking the right set up for your head is the best option, but we all have different opinions in our head as to which is best, it's the reason there is such a trade in aftermarket chokes and muti chokes.

 

But it's not going to gain you more than an odd clay on any given day and most days non at all. But I have lost comps or prize money by one clay plenty of times so I do consider choke changing on bouncing rabbits or low driven to help my odds.

 

:good:

Timps - on the money.

:good:

Personally, I train with full-full. I'd rather know that I'm not on it if I'm not, and know I need to improve that. I even train at skeet with full/full, and I did my first 25 like that. To my mind it's good practice; so that if you want to start counting, just put 2 1/2 1/2 as Westward says and you'll benefit from the 'frindge' of the pattern in case you are not perfectly on it.

 

Well that's my theory anyway, I like it :)

 

You should train with what you like to compete with.

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Personally, I train with full-full. I'd rather know that I'm not on it if I'm not, and know I need to improve that. I even train at skeet with full/full, and I did my first 25 like that. To my mind it's good practice; so that if you want to start counting, just put 2 1/2 1/2 as Westward says and you'll benefit from the 'frindge' of the pattern in case you are not perfectly on it.

 

Well that's my theory anyway, I like it :)

Timps and Westward make a lot of sense. Also, as has been said, unless you pattern the gun you have no idea what's going on and that you may be surprised. This is highlighted in a recent post/photo by an experienced guy that reflected that his full choke with a well known clay pigeon brand cartridge was actually throwing XXFull at 40 yards.

 

As I read him, Westward quite rightly said that you "can't" rely on the pattern fringe.

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I started out by absorbing all that was written down in books by people who I later learned talked a good score rather better than they walked it :) so as little choke as possible which seemed to work fairly well because targets back in the day were dustbin lids at fairly close yardages and we were allowed 32g too which was nice !

 

Then one day having missed enough to put myself out of the running on a tricky and fairly distant pair of Teal I bumped into a local pot hunter by the name of Danny Daniels who shot a fixed choke 682 1/2 & 3/4, what followed was my personal revelation in two ways, first that a heavy, clay specific gun DOES make a difference regardless of how many times you read banal statements about Indians and Arrows :rolleyes:, the second that "enough" choke matters. Quite simply I found that I could fire at and EXPECT to break edge on distant targets, the same day I managed to do very well (memory is fading I may have even won it) on the 10 bird Pool stand which included a very stiff going away quartering target orange at slightly gulp inducing distance using Danny's gun. What will forever be etched in mind is him saying (behave yourself) after I had blown apart the third or forth target :lol: so amazed was he even that I was finding that target.

 

Fast forward to last Sunday where at my first stand of a registered shoot I kept getting weak breaks on the (2x10) difficulty going away bird and admittedly two misses on the second (6.5x10) difficulty high quartering away bird. On the last pair in a bid to trick my mind into a positive mode I selected top barrel and was rewarded with an amazing first barrel kill as should have been the case from the half choke anyway. Stay with me as I shot the next stand where a rather shootable high/fast away bird evaded me completely despite the sight picture looking more than adequate, the second rapid crosser was smoke balled. I immediately went into "save the rest" mode and pre-mounted on the first bird and managed 4 choppy kills and four more smokes.

 

On the next stand I decided to change to a Full for a very tidy looking Teal just to focus my mind not because I believed you needed more than the half/half I thought I was using. You guessed right if you had thought I was to find my bottom barrel was Skeet. :yes:

 

This phenomenon of finding open chokes give more erratic, less convincing break signatures is not imaginary, it has happened to me before hence why I use a little more than graphs would hint is enough. There must be a reason why ALL top 20 shooters use tighter chokes, none compete with open chokes as a matter of routine.

Edited by Hamster
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Guest cookoff013

chokes are one part of a complex thing, cartridges are another.

 

with subsonics, choke does not matter at all, i can change it all day and it still gives full patterns with cyl bore choke. (32g subs)

old days of 32g 7.5 could afford open chokes, whereas now 21g loads are the norm (even super magnum class, by some numpties)

21g isnt alot of shot but may mean choking it to death to get something at40y

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Guest cookoff013

chokes are one part of a complex thing, cartridges are another.

 

with subsonics, choke does not matter at all, i can change it all day and it still gives full patterns with cyl bore choke. (32g subs)

old days of 32g 7.5 could afford open chokes, whereas now 21g loads are the norm (even super magnum class, by some numpties)

21g isnt alot of shot but may mean choking it to death to get something at40y

continued.

 

cartridges are the part of the equation that is often missed out, of the question "what chokes you got?" 36g and bigger shells were more commonplace for shooting but often limited to 1200fps, thats normal, the newer clay loads are lighter and clocking faster so needs optimising the choking to "THE CHOKE TO WHATEVER PATTERNS BEST"

i use full and full, it gives me piece of mind with all tiny shot.

for larger or specialised shot, i`ll open that up. i pretty much use full for lead, and more open for "not lead"

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