Thoughts on The Naming of Chokes

 

All shotgunners are divided into three parts: Those who describe a choke by its pattern performance, those who describe it by its constriction, and those who describe it by the manufacturer’s nomenclature.  There’s something to be said for, and against, all three approaches.

The notion of choke being a description of pattern performance is an old one; and just like a fine set of tweeds and a lacky to load your gun, there’s a certain old-world charm to it.*  The idea is that a gun’s choke will place a certain percentage of the shot charge in a 30” circle at 40 yards. 

Choke	Pattern Percentage
Cylinder	40%
Skeet	45%
Improved Cylinder	55%
Modified	60%
Improved Modified	65%
Full	70%

 Like most old ideas, it probably made a lot of sense in the context from which it came.  Perhaps shooters stuck more closely to a specific loadings in Edwardian England?  Or maybe shooting was more predictable?  Or maybe it was all fluff from the gunsmiths who knew no one would pattern their shotguns anyway (this is my bet).  Whether it worked or not back then, this is how it works today: it doesn’t.

Here are three patterns from the same gun/shell combo.  The only variable is the shot size.

12 ga 2.75” Nobel Sport
Cheddite CX2000
An amount of Longshot
PT1265 + felt and plastic filler beads as needed
1 oz steel shot
 
Remington 870 Express
Remington flush IC
At 40 yards

 

#BBB.  44/60 = 73.3%

 

#1. 68/103 = 66.0%

#4. 110/192 = 57.3%

Based on the pattern performance, this same tube would be called either a Full, an IM or an IC.  The same all-over-the-board-ness holds true with fixed choke guns.  And just like knowing what “drams equivalent” signifies,** you have to either have the above chart on hand or memorized (or not care) when someone says such and such gun shoots a IM pattern.

So, a little herky jerky.

On the other hand, choke constriction is the most objective descriptor of the thing itself; as true when it’s fired as when it’s in the box.  And since it doesn’t have embedded in it any notion of the choke’s performance, its information is more easily translated.   

name	constriction	Nominal diameter
Cylinder	.000”	.729”
Skeet	.005”	.724”
Improved Cylinder	.010”	.719”
Light Modified	.015”	.714”
Modified	.020”	.709”
Improved Modified	.025”	.704”
Full	.030”	.699”

 Unfortunately, awesome chart aside, as illustrated by the patterns above, that information doesn’t really mean much.  I can guess what a .725” choke will do—but It’d be just a guess until I put holes in some paper.  Also, I find “point seven two five inch choke” something of a mouthful, and I’d likely end up smashing it into something like “poinsebenTWOfiver,” which defeats the whole point. 

As we’ve always said, and as is demonstrated above, all load/choke combos are individuals.  In light of that, we might as well call them “Ted” and “Willie.”  And there’s as much sense in that as there is in what some manufacturers label their chokes: “Code Black Duck” or “Cremator.”***  Using this naming system, I would call the choke that came with my 870 a MOD, because that’s what it says on it (regardless of the fact that, with steel shot, it generally throws a 70% - 75% pattern at 40 yards).  This is, obviously, what the vast majority of hunters do.  But why would I do that when I can call it a “Hemorrhager” or an “eXtreme Barbarian?”

So, I got this used choke tube for my 870’s that’s from (I think) the late 90’s or early 00’s.  It’s a Hasting’s Extended Steel Shot Full.  The blurb on the back of the packaging states:

“[These chokes] fire superior patterns with steel shot and while suitable for all sizes of steel shot, are especially designed to handle the larger (T & F) steel shot.  Steel…tends to deliver tighter patterns than lead shot. A standard FULL choke is not necessary with steel shot to shoot a tight pattern a MODIFIED constriction will do the job. These special steel shot chokes however, are designed so that the MODIFIED choke for example, fires a true modified pattern with steel shot.”

So a Modified choke shoots a Full pattern.  Check.  But this one measures .706”, which according to the handy chart makes it an Improved Modified.  AND… it’s 50 yard patterns  with the #BBB load I’d use it with are 76%-82% (and the load of #4’s I won’t use with it printed 86.3% at 50 yards), which according to the other handy chart makes it an Extra Full (I guess).  Sigh…

On a brighter note, it did pattern some #F through it, and got a Full pattern.  So there’s that.

 

---

* Which is to say, like most British systems, it’s hierarchical and aristocratic (whatever they may say about it).  This choke shall have a modified pattern because it was made to have a modified pattern—just as this man was made to shoot pheasants and that one was made to hold a drinks tray.  And we Americans, in our officially classless, meritocratic society, can’t get enough of it.  Americans have this weird anglophile thing—weird because we refuse to admit it.  Like little brothers who desperately try to emulate their older sibling while simultaneously maintaining our otherness

** After making such a point of being space age, why do we still insist on this little wedge of tradition? More on this some other day…

*** I’m just waiting for the “Extra Decoying” or the “Cannibal, the choke that won’t fill you up and never lets you down.”

____________________________________________________________________________

ADDENDUM:

Dave in AZ had some comments on the above post, which stirred in me some more musings.  This may, or may not, grow into another post at some point.  

For the longest time, I didn't calculate the percentages, but just look at the number of hits. My thinking was, if wad "A" puts 60 pellets in the circle at 50 yards, does it really matter if that's a 80% pattern or a 85% pattern? Afterall, birds aren't killed--or even slightly wounded--by percentages, but by pellets. I only started calculating percentages because I was working on a pattern of patterns project. Then way lead on to way, and I had to do them all.

But when you put a percentage to a pattern, it can change your reaction to it in some way because you now have another expression for the pattern. It shifts your focus, kind of like switching to the passive voice. That 60 pellet pattern looked great, but now that i also know it's ONLY a 66.7%, is it really the Death Ray I was hoping for?* And on the flip side, I got an 86% pattern with a 3" load of #F steel, which sounds great... but it's still only 43 pellets.

This also applies to how we mark the pattern paper. Think about how the lines in a perspective drawing focus your eye on a single point on the paper. How does the 30" circle on a flat paper organize the shot cloud in our mind?

Here's a load of #BBB on a 48" paper.

There are 59 pellet hits on the paper.

This is the same pattern, but with a circle. (Well, it's the flip side, so the holes are reversed left to right)

It's the same 59 pellets on the paper, but the circle organizes it, slicing out 15 peelts, and drawing your attention to that gap over there or that clump over here. In short, it somehow de-randomizes and predictable-izes an otherwise random and one-off event, thus allowing us to have a relationship with it.

It draws to mind "Anecdote of the Jar" by Wallace Stevens:

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.





*Bad example, because we all know that 66.7% is really 66.6 repeating, which is the Death Ray of all Death Rays