choke tubes constriction or design

[davesonic444]

I see choke tubes from 680 to 640 for my 12 gauge. I also notice a wide variety in prices. The higher priced ones I assume are charging these prices for advance technology designs.
So which is going to yield the best pattern? 

[fountain2]

there is a lot more to it than that.  what gun, what loads and so on.  the most expensive isnt always better.  knowing the gun you have and the loads you intend to shoot and what type of pattern you are looking for will help determine your answer.  there are a lot of chokes out there with a lot of differet desings and constrictions.  more nowso than ever.  you have mass produced larger companies and you have the smaller custom shops that all turn out a product with the same basic goal, to help achieve a pattern that wil lhelp to make your gun the best that it can be in the turkey woods.

[davesonic444]

I realise that and thought maybe there might be some trends that people would share in their search for choke tubes.

[fountain2]

still, it all depends on the gun and the loads primarily.  people shooting the hevi 6&7 loads can get by with tighter chokes than others shooting the tss.  some guns may work better with an open chokke with the exact same gun someone else has may work better with a tighter choke in the same design.  some loads perform better with open chokes..tss, nitro blends.  the federal flite control stuff may need too be choked all together differently.

there are a lot of options out there and this site can help steer you in the right direction, but there is not a guarantee choke/design per gun

[dirt road ninja]

Chokes of the same restriction, but different manufactor will often times shoot different. Most of my experience is with the 835, and I'm assuming you are shooting something else. A few things I've found to be consistent with my rig......

1. Smaller shot likes a tighter choke.
2. Shorter barrels like something a little more open.
3. The gun doesn't know or care how much the choke cost.
4. Quality shot does better then cheap ammo

If don't want to play with a bunch of different combo's get a Jellyhead in the most open model for your gun and shoot either Hevi 13 6, 7's, magblends or Winchester XR 6's. You'll have a rock solid 40 yard gun.

[davesonic444]

What do you do with all the chokes that don't work? Is there a choke tube trading thread?

[mrclif]

If you go with some of the custom choke builders"Sum toy,Rob Roberts,ETC,," they will help you get the most of your gun,load combo. Tell what you got and what  your wanting out of your weapon they'll probably get right the first try.

[ILIKEHEVI-13]

The only way you will know for sure how a choke shoots is to shoot it out of your gun.  Finding out what chokes works in particular guns will typically save you money ahead of time when buying choke tubes.  In my honest opinion and there may be few exceptions is to concentrate on choke diameters from .655 for a low to a high of .675.  There really isn't any benefit of going tighter than .655.  My experience is that when you do, you may still get good 10" numbers but your pattern will start to have holes in it after the 10" and suffer what they call a blown pattern effect.  .675 typically will be about as big as you willl need to go in most barrels.  This is just what I have found from my findings typically for Rem barrels, Moss 835's, Win Invector barrels and Browning Invector Plus barrels.  And it helps tremedously to shoot good to better than good shooting loads. 

[davesonic444]

Thanks for everyone's advice. I have some heavy 3-2-7  to shoot and when I get something I like it will be posted here.   

[allaboutshooting]

I see choke tubes from 680 to 640 for my 12 gauge. I also notice a wide variety in prices. The higher priced ones I assume are charging these prices for advance technology designs.
So which is going to yield the best pattern?  

Great question! Every choke designer believes that he has the best idea and the best design. He may believe that a certain parallel length is correct, or that a certain angle on the conical section is correct or that grooves, lines, wad stoppers or some combination of those or none of those is correct.  A designer may be certain that a choke with a length of 3" overall is right and another may insist that a 4" long choke is necessary.

Some manufacturers will insist that a crowned muzzle is the only way to go and others will insist that notches are a good thing.

Ports are widely discussed and some makers insist that their ports are better than the ports on another gun. Some makers believe that ports are not only unnecessary but detrimental to choke performance.

The most discussed part of any choke seems to be the exit diameter. We tend to refer to chokes by that feature alone. Many manufacturers also insist that it's really more about how you get to that muzzle exit diameter (internal geometry) than the exit diameter itself.

At one time, early on in the development of tungsten-based shot, shotshell makers, choke manufacturers and gun makers alike were absolutely sure that you'd damage your gun if you shot any of that shot through a choke with an exit diameter tighter than .675 on a standard bore gun.

Twelve years of pretty intense "boots on the ground" research has proven that to be untrue, like a lot of other ideas that we have had about how chokes work and how a particular shot type functions through those chokes.

Folks are continually coming up with new ideas of what the think works. Some take old ideas, combine them with some new ones and come up with a different product all together.

All of this gets to be even more complicated at times due to different shot sizes, shot materials, propellants, wads, barrel lengths and of course the differences in individual guns.

You can gain some information by talking to people who actually shoot the different guns, with different barrel lengths, with the different chokes and different shotshells. That can give you a head start on finding what works best in your gun but you need to take your gun to the range to really find out what works best for you.

Lastly, that only just begins the process. It takes more than a shell or 2 to find out if your combination works. There are variances in the performance of any brand of shotshells, from shell to shell. That's just the way it is.

You must also figure out if your gun likes to be shot "squeaky clean", slightly dirty or really fouled. You can only find that out by starting out with a deep cleaned bore and shooting it with one choke and one type of shell, without cleaning between shots, until patterns either get better or get worse.

Great question!

Thanks,
Clark

[davesonic444]

Darn it. I hadn't thought about dirty verses clean variables.
Thanks Clark

[paladin]

There are two ways to do this.
one is buy a choke and a bunch of shells till you find what you like and what works.
the other is to pick what you want to shoot and buy choke tubes until you find what you like and what works.
You have three choices of shot ...lead, heavy  and TSS.
Then the choice of size 4,5,6 for lead, 5,6,7 for heavy and 7,8,9 for tss.
Not to mention blends of any combo.
I found handloading TSS with factory turkey chokes to be better than heavy in high dollar chokes.
I suggest polish your barrel, load some tss, mount a fastfire, lengthen the forcing cone and try the extra full turkey factory. If that doesn't work then try a tighter choke. I think for the dollar output these are the most productive avenues.

[albrubacker]

 
I am up to 12 boxes of different ammo 1 choke and 1 upset old lady! 
Thinking about trying another choke

[SumToy]

Alot getting a choke to shoot.  Days of time and alot $$$$$$ money.  Alot of copies cats but a few that come up with the lay out that works.   You got to play with the taper (some have 3 to 4 angles)  Then the parallel of the choke (1 copied the jug choke) then over all length of the choke.  Then you get the ports (1st Kick's built in Claxton Ga 15 miles from our shop Guy last name Kicklighter)

So buy a GOOD shell and pick a choke that fits in with it.  You have about 3 or 4 goods ones that will work with you to get your gun set up.

[Michigander]

As stated before, it all depends on what you want and how much you want to spend.

Ive killed over 50 toms the old fashioned way, with lead and inside of 40 yards. For me it isn't worth the expense of buying $50 chokes and shells that are $4 a piece when I know that I can kill my bird here in MI with a #7 1/2 target load. I have some great areas to hunt and there are lots of birds.

However in parts of MO where we hunt, it is nice to have a setup with some reach. Usually we are there for a week and you can kill 2 birds. That coupled with the fact that there is a lot more hunting pressure means I want to make the most of every opportunity.

I've hunted with my Nova the past several years, but this year I wanted to set up my Browning Gold. I found a SSX on sale for $25 and then found some old Remington hevi-shot 3 1/2" #6 for $17 a box. Now I can put 170 in the 10 with a pretty even 20. Pretty sweet when you look at the overall cost.

So its really up to you.  A lot of guys hand load TSS or shoot Nitros, and If thats what you want to do than by all means, have at it. For me personally, The extra expense isnt worth it. You really just have to decide what  performance is worth to YOU.