what a difference an inch and a choke tube make

[fabsroman]

Good posts guys.

Luckily, I have learned my lessons a little earlier in life. I got the gun fit thing straight when I was about 22. That is when I started shooting trap and I bought my first Beretta o/u. You can bet that I made sure it fit me. That was an o/u double/single combo. On the 16 yard line I was using full choke to dust the birds, because I was told to use it. A couple years later, I figured out that modified works just fine.

Bought another o/u when I got into skeet and sporting clays, and that was about 5 years ago. I had been using an o/u field gun and the new o/u didn't make that much of a difference. Anyway, I had been shooting an auto for hunting and did pretty well with it, so when Beretta came out with the shiny new Teknys I decided to get one for sporting clays/skeet. I couldn't believe the difference. With the o/u, I was shooting in the high 30's, low 40's, but with the new auto I was shooting in the 40's all the time and had a best score of 48. Nowadays, it is pretty rare for me to drop out of the 40's. I ended up shooting my first 25 straight in skeet with that gun that year too. What I noticed is that I am very sensitive to recoil. Not only did the action on the auto reduce the felt recoil, but the gel-tek pad, and the recoil reducer in the stock made a huge difference. The recoil between the auto and the o/u was noticeably different. After that, I went from shooting 1 1/8 oz. loads for sportings clays to 1 oz loads of #8's for almost everything except for the really long shots. I also installed a recoil reducer in the stock of my hunting gun (i.e., SBE) and now I don't get back aches anymore.

As far as chokes are concerned, I change them up when I am shooting sporting clays and it usually ranges anywhere from skeet to improved modified. About the only time I have used full in the recent past was about two years ago when I had to shoot 3 pairs of mini's at a clays shoot. DaMadman was there for that one.