Choke Tubes Explained - Selecting the Right Choke Tube | Gould Brothers

a question that steve and i get asked all the time is what choke tube should we use for say hunting or shooting in this scenario well the answer is actually much more complex than a one-size-fits-all answer and so in this video i'm going to try and keep things simple but for all of you guys that don't really understand choke tubes quite yet i'm going to try and give you enough information so that you can make the right decision the next time you're on the range and screwing in that choke too let's briefly talk about what a choke tube is and what it does a choke tube screws in the end of your shotgun barrel and what it does is it constricts or squeezes the shot column as it's leaving the barrel giving it a different downrange performance depending on which type of choke tube that you have installed in your gun so as you move from cylinder to full the tighter you get the more squeeze that there is inside that choke and that's going to effectively give you longer downrange performance with your shot pattern now before we get any farther the only way you're actually going to know how your gun performs is if you put it on paper that's right you're going to have to pattern your shotgun now i know only about 10 to 15 percent of you out there actually do pad in your shotgun but it is honestly the only way to know what the performance of your gun your choke tube and your ammo are doing now this video we're not going to get too deep in the woods on patterning there's a whole method and how you want to do that but what i am going to do is i'm going to shoot a full choke and a cylinder choke both at 10 30 and 50 yards and that should give you a very good representation of what this choke tube is doing i'm using kind of both sides of the spectrum you have cylinder which is wide open and full which is quite constricted the only time you're going to get more is an extra full or a turkey choke it's also going to give you the best representation of how these chokes can greatly affect the downrange performance of the shotgun just to give you guys an idea what i'll be shooting i have the gold metal grand from federal right here this is a eight shot 1200 feet per second two and three quarter one and an eighth ounce load it's what we use during our exhibition shows the gun is an sx4 with a carlson full choke installed in it let's see what it does at 10 30 and 50. here we are 10 yards i'm using the birchwood casey shoot c targets this is a 17 by 17 target it's a little bit small for normal patterning work but it's really easy for you guys to see in the camera what's going on this is the carlson full choke at 10 yards you can see that the pattern is not much bigger than my hand that's where the wad hit the paper right there let's go check out 30 yards now this is pretty interesting here at 30 yards because back at 10 yards that full choke was not much bigger than my hand but now there's bbs covering almost well there are bbs covering the entire 17 by 17 inch target and if we had a full piece of paper on here like if you were paddling with a 30 inch circle you would see bb's you know some of these bbs right here are probably from that shot that i just took here so obviously this 17 by 17 inch target hit really hard at 30 yards with the full choke so that's interesting now at 50 yards even with a full choke you're starting to see that pattern continue to open up more space between all of these bbs and honestly a shotgun yes you can take clays and things down well past 60 70 yards but you're seeing that even with a full choke you know that pattern's starting to get pretty wide open let's go back reset the targets and try a cylinder choke i'm going to put in my carlson competition cylinder choke tube and then take shots of 10 30 and 50 again and then let's compare them here we are at 10 yards you can see that we got a pretty good coverage compared to what we had with the full choke so a cylinder choke tube opens up a lot quicker 10 yards pretty much the whole paper whole 17 by 17 is covered let's go check out 30 yards 30 yards we got a fairly even pattern but you can definitely tell that your b the bbs are spaced out it's possible to use a cylinder choke tube at 30 yards just probably getting out of its range still fairly uniform pattern but you're starting to see some holes in the pattern and stuff at 30 yards let's check out 50. here we are 50-yard cylinder choke tube this looks like it has pretty good coverage but i bet there's almost half as few bbs on this target as there was back at 30 yards this target is definitely getting a lot more blown out there's a lot less bbs on it and the holes like my whole hand almost fits there my hand fits there there's a big gap here let's take them down look at them side by side it's kind of interesting looking at these targets side by side obviously the full choke is really tight at 10 yards the cylinder choke tube you know looks pretty good now looking here at 30 yards full choke against the cylinder choke well the full choke that looks like an awesome pattern and the cylinder choke looks yeah it could do it but uh you know there's not a lot of bbs on that getting out to 50 yards though we see something kind of interesting is that neither target has a lot of bbs on it obviously there's more bbs on the full choke side so that's pretty interesting to look at that and see what those are doing side by side all right when we're talking about choke tubes i think there are two discussions there's target shooting and then there's hunting now in target shooting you're typically shooting at known birds meaning you know where they're going to come from and you've already judged what distance they're at typically when you come up to a stage say a sporting class you do get to see the birds or you've watched the person in front of you so you know that information so that's an advantage you have in say games like trap skeet sporting clays compared to hunting so here's my recommendations for you to start out with 20 yards in in i like to use a cylinder choke tube 30 yards in in improved cylinder 40 yards and in modified over 40 yards i'm gonna be shooting a full choke like the one i have in my hand right here so that's a really good approximate area to start with sport shooting if you're shooting a specific game like trap or skeet some of the guys that shoot that professionally may have a little bit of wisdom and they might adjust one way or the other a little bit on their choke tubes from what i just gave you but if you're not familiar with choke tubes that's a very good place to start now you might be wondering why i broke out target shooting and hunting well i think that there's a difference between target shooting and hunting because in target shooting you're going for a score when you're hunting you're trying to take that game as ethically as you possibly can the second thing you got to consider is am i shooting lead or steel at the game that i'm hunting there is a difference in how you choke for it we're going to just touch on that briefly in just a minute the other thing that we got to think about is what is the game animal so is it a big tough bird like a goose or a duck or is it something like a grouse you know there is a big difference in both the style of hunting as well as the game that we want to consider in what we're shooting for a choke tube as well as our ammo combination for that those are the considerations now this is what i do for hunting if i'm hunting with lead i tend to choke down one step from what i just gave you for target shooting 20 yards and in improved cylinder 30 yards and then modified 40 yards and then full that's for shooting lead it's a little bit different when i'm shooting steel because in shooting steel is that if you constrict it down too tight because steel doesn't mesh like lead going through the choke that you can blow your patterns up if you get too tight what i do when i'm shooting steel is i actually back off one choke tube so with steel my go-to is almost modified in every situation or improved cylinder now one other consideration when it comes to hunting is the choke tube that you have rated for steel so the way that you can tell if your choke tube is for steel the carlson choke tube that i have right here in my hand it says steel lead so that means that it's perfectly fine to use steel and lead in this choke tube my go-to choke in almost any scenario where i'm just not sure what the shooting is going to be like is a modified show for all of you out there just like i can only buy one of these carlson choke tubes well get a modified it'll serve you well for waterfowl as well as a lot of the upland game that you might want to chase and it will be good on the range as well but honestly my recommendation is that you have a full line of choke tubes know how to use them understand them and i hope this video gives you an idea of a little bit of a starting point for especially for you that are maybe new to shotgunning and just don't have a lot of confidence or understand exactly how this choke tube is working i know it's a little bit rudimentary for all of you experienced shotgun shooters out there but remember there's a lot of people out there that are getting into the shooting sports that don't have the background that maybe you and i have guys i just want you to know if you're in the market for some aftermarket choke tubes or an extended choke tube like you're seeing steve and i shooting all of our guns check out carlson choke tubes they're a great manufacturer we like them we enjoy them and i know you will too the sun is already setting here on this december afternoon here in minnesota afternoons aren't very long in the northland so i'm going to close out this video remember it's impossible to hit the shots you never take so pull that trigger and shoot for your dreams god bless [Music]

Channel: Gould Brothers

Views: 134,169

Keywords: Choke tube selection, Choke tubes, Choke selection, Shotgun choke selection, Hunting chokes, shooting steel in chokes, Carlson chokes, choke tube selection for sporting clays, how does a choke work, shotgun chokes, lead vs steel chokes, Chokes for your shotgun, shotgun shooting tips, shotgun performance, Gould Brothers, Aaron Gould, selecting the right choke, Carlson's Choke Tubes, Choke tube selection guide, Extended Choke Tubes, Competition Chokes, choke tubes explained

Id: QbcZJm9VNX8

Length: 9min 56sec (596 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 15 2020