Understanding Choke Tubes and Patterning Your Shotgun

Contrary to what we see in the latest action blockbusters, you actually have to aim a shotgun. Shocker I know, right? Regardless of where you are in your stage of understanding all things firearms, shotgun loads and chokes can be confusing at times to say the least. Which is probably why it’s commonly referred to as the “thinking man’s” gun. You can consider this a choke tube/ patterning 101 for the novice to beginner scattergun owner.

It used to be a general rule of thumb, that birdshot and buckshot once they’ve left the barrel of a smoothbore shotgun, spread outward right around one inch for every yard. Unfortunately that easy to explain way of shotgun patterning isn’t the slightest bit true. One thing that holds far more truth than anything else, is that every shotgun patterns (the outward spreading of your shells shot at a particular distance) differently.

 

Chokes:

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Although birdshot and buckshot don’t spread at this mythical inch, they still spread and the farther your target is away from the end of the muzzle, the farther the outward spread of your projectiles. While this sounds like a good thing if you want to hit your target without aiming, one or two pellets are certainly not enough to take down a steel target or pheasant in flight for example. This is where chokes come into the picture.

Chokes aka choke tubes, work by constricting the shot right as it’s starting to open up when exiting the muzzle. The more restriction or more “choke”, the tighter the shot will be at distance. The opposite also holds true, the less choke the wider your shot will spread at that same distance. What choke is right for you? Depending on what you’re doing, skeet, 3Gun, or waterfowl hunting, there are sets of chokes made to give you the desired effect.

In my case I’m shooting 3gun and went with a Carlson extended waterfowl choke set which gives you the three most common choke tubes needed for your shotgun in the sport. The chokes in this set are the exact same as an (IC) improved cylinder, (MOD)modified, and full chokes or as they’re labeled, close range, mid range, and long range.

 

Patterning:

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While that’s great that these chokes make it semi-easy to figure out which one to use based on the distance of your target, you’ll only truly know the spread of your shot by testing out each choke at the same distance with the same ammo aka patterning.

For my particular application I’m using Winchester super target 2-3/4, 1300fps/3-1/4 dram, 1-1/8 oz,  #7-1/2 shot. Upon further inspection this means there’s 393 pellets in every shell. (This will come into play later)

DISCLAIMER*Your experience will obviously be different, that is unless you’re shooting the exact same 24” barrel Stoeger  M3000 with the same ammo and at the same distance.

 

Close range –Improved cylinder

With the close range choke installed and a standard 18×30” IPSC target placed at 25 yards, I fired one shot off the bench at the center A-zone.

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At this distance only 196 pellets made it on the target and the actual pattern of the pellets that did hit is quite wide. In my experience this would be ok for busting a clay out of the sky or one at rest but unless I was dead on with a 6” steel target it may or may not knock it over.

 

Mid range- Modified

With the mid range choke installed and a new standard 18×30” IPSC target placed at 25 yards, I fired one shot off the bench at the center A-zone.

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At this distance, 320 out of the 393 pellets made it on target and the pattern was very dense for the area that I was aiming. This would without a doubt knock over any steel target you would see on the 3gun circuit at this distance.

 

Lone range- Full

With the long range choke installed and a new standard 18×30” IPSC target placed at 25 yards, I fired one shot off the bench at the center A-zone.

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The results are somewhat surprising in that only 318 out of 393 pellets hit the target. This may be a case of a few fliers or a less than perfect shot on my end but I suspect that if I pushed the distance out to 35 yards and retook the shot, it would have a high percentage of pellets on paper based on the density of the shots that were on this 25 yard target.

 

So what does this tell me?

For one, if I were shooting steel targets at 25 yards I’d opt for the mid range or modified choke to be sure I knocked that target over. Also from this test I can guestimate that the max range I’d want to push the close range or improved cylinder choke out to is 20ish yards based on what I’m doing. If I was going to be using a different selection of ammo, I would perform this test again to ensure I had the right density and pellets on paper based on the same distance.

 

While this isn’t the most scientific or in-depth discussion of all things shotgun patterning and choke tube selection, however it is a brief introduction and “how-to”  for the novice looking to get your feet wet in the world of figuring out exactly what your shotgun is capable of. Hopefully this article did just that.

 

Still have questions about choke tubes or patterning? Let me know in the comment section below! As always guys, shoot-em straight and be safe.

 

 

Jeremy L
Latest posts by Jeremy L (see all)

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8 Responses to Understanding Choke Tubes and Patterning Your Shotgun

  1. Brian says:

    This was extremely useful! Thank you!

  2. Mr David E Willson says:

    My firearm is a Remington 870 Express with tube extension instead of the long tube tactical as this allows me to change barrels which the fixed tube does not allow for. My experience with shotguns is 12 gauge riot control weapons I carried in the military for law enforcement and security, and in Vietnam. The only ammo used in 21+ years was 00 Buck. So this is all new to me.

    I found this article to be both informative and helpful.

    For a novice with barrel changes and choke tubes, can you suggest the best approach to educating myself in order to have a weapon which will serve a multi-role application (range, hunt, defense)?

    Thanks

    • Steve Chin says:

      You’ve actually got a great multi-purpose gun in the 870. You can put a 28″ Rem-Choke barrel on it and use it for targets and waterfowl (you’ll have to remove the magazine extension for any hunting), and continue to use a short barrel for defense. If you find that your patterns are less than ideal, there’s all sorts of work that can be done to the barrels, including lengthening the forcing cone, back-boring the barrel, and using aftermarket choke tubes. The best single modification I’ve found is the forcing cone (this work should only be done by a recognized leader in the field, as an inconcentric forcing cone can be dangerous). You may also want o experiment with different loads at the patterning board. Just like with a pistol or a rifle, different loads work better in different barrels.

  3. GoHunt says:

    An excellent lesson in “over choke”. This phenom is not contemplated by 95% of turkey hunters, including most of the turkey hunting guides!

  4. William says:

    your research and testing has proved very helpful to me in understanding patterns in my use of chock tubes

  5. COLBullsigh says:

    This information is why I always use a “Two-Eyes-Open” red dot sight on my scatterguns I use for hunting. But with my home defense gun, which will blow a fist-sized tunnel through an Obummer-Voter’s gut across a room even with rock salt, I don’t have to worry that much about patterning. Good article. I’d like to see your results from flyover distance tests up to 50 yds.

  6. Randy says:

    Very much appreciated. I don’t have much to do with shotgunning except when I’m showing my wife how to use the self defense 410. So I don’t get a chance to get into the more versatile aspects of shot size and choke size. Really thankful whenever someone else takes the time to step back and go over some basics the rest of us may have never had.

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