Choke comparison question

[Woodsman4God]

For those of you who have cycled through several different chokes I was curious to the opinions on a few different chokes for my 20 ga, the candidates I have are an Indian creek , a pure gold and a Swarm, all of them are .555 constirciton and a sumtoy which is .562. . I realize the gun/choke has probably more to do with it but just curious what you all think

[msgobblergetter]

I have run the PG .555, IC .555 and currently the PG .570.  My findings have been that the PG .570 and IC .555 both pattern extremely well from my 870 and 1187 20ga.  Both guns have 26" bbls.  I have heard others having better luck than me with the PG .555 running shorter barrels, but the i had holes in my pattern with the PG .555.  I sent it back to PG in exchange for the .570.  I actually prefer the PG .570 a little over the IC .555 simply because it gives me a little better 20" pattern coverage than the IC.  I can't help with the Swarm, I have never tested it.

Here are the choke rankings that I prefer in my 1187...

1. PG .570
2. IC .555
3. SSX .550
4. Rem Super Full (Lead only version) .572

[R AJ]

I have had the IC 555, Swarm. and the SumToy. Of these three I personally prefer the SumToy for its versatility in shooting a variety of shot sizes and the consistency of the patterns with each shell from lead through Fed HW and #5-#7 shot. The only gun that I have used these chokes on is a Rem 870 express with a 26" bbl so this report is limited by my experiences only.

The chokes you have mentioned are all proven performers in many guns. Dawei gets a very repeatable performance with lead #4s in the Swarm choke that I am unable to achieve with my Remington. There are no set rules of thumb here. The worst choke you have may just become your best for a shell that comes out next year. Who knows?