Tips for duck or goose hunting

Choke Choices

For Nontoxic Shot

Currently waterfowl hunters have a choice of shooting five different nontoxic shot brands. All those options have multiplied the confusion about which choke produces the best pattern with each type of shot. I’ve heard it all:

• “Oh no, don’t use any choke tighter than modified with steel.”

• “HEVI•Shot is so hard you’ll wreck your barrel if you use anything tighter than improved cylinder.”

• “Use a full choke and bismuth shoots like a rifle on geese at 70 yards.”

To determine some basic facts about nontoxic shot and chokes, I patterned 12-gauge loads of steel, Bismuth Cartridge Bismuth, Remington HEVI•Shot, Federal Tungsten-Iron and Kent Cartridge Tungsten Matrix shots through improved cylinder, modified and full chokes of a Beretta AL391 Xtrema 3.5 and Winchester’s Super X2 3-inch shotguns. Patterns were shot at 25 and 40 yards. The percentage of a load’s pellets that landed in the standard 30-inch circle at 40 yards and a proportionally reduced circle of 8.75 inches at 25 yards were tabulated. Comparing pattern percentages at the two distances showed if different shot continued to fly true between 25 to 40 yards.

After several hundred empty shells lay on the ground and I had counted a bazillion pellet holes, I found no one kind or size of shot patterned best with one choke. For instance, Bismuth Cartridge’s Bismuth and Kent Cartridge’s Tungsten Matrix are relatively soft, and BBs and No. 1s of those shots patterned the tightest with a modified choke. However, the smaller Nos. 4 and 5 flowed through a choke with less marring and patterned tightest with a full choke. At the other extreme, steel, Federal’s Tungsten-Iron and Remington’s HEVI•Shot are many times harder. These three shot pellets do not deform on firing and, for the most part, patterned the tightest with a full choke, no matter their shot size. The following summarize the findings:

Bismuth

Compared to other nontoxic shot, Bismuth pellets are relatively soft. “Bismuth is fairly brittle, though, and holds up on firing to keep its round shape,” says Chuck Webb, of Briley Manufacturing, which sells choke tubes. Buffers sifted among the Bismuth pellets in the shotcup also help protect the shot from smashing together during the kick of firing. “Pretty much the same choke you would use for lead shot you can use for Bismuth,” Webb says.

The Bismuth Cartridge load of 11⁄4 ounces of No. 4s showed a steady tightening of its patterns at 40 yards, progressing from improved cylinder to modified to full chokes in the Winchester and Beretta shotguns. The full chokes in both shotguns only lost 6 percent of their pellets out of the pattern circle from 25 to 40 yards.

However, the 15⁄8 ounces of Bismuth BBs was a different story. “With these larger shots you don’t need as much choke,” says Jerrod Trulock of Trulock Chokes. “With 2s or larger of Bismuth shot I wouldn’t go anything tighter than improved/ modified.” The large pellets jam and cram against each other as they go through a choke. Giving them a little breathing room keeps them round and flying straight. The Winchester Super X2 shot its tightest patterns with a modified choke at 40 yards with the big Bismuth pellets. The Beretta Xtrema pretty much printed the same patterns with all three of its chokes.

“Really, I don’t think you even need Bismuth BBs,” Trulock says. “Bismuth 2s pack enough punch for any goose that ever flew.”

Remington HEVI•Shot

Trulock and Webb say HEVI•Shot pellets look like welding splatter. The pellets are a combination of tungsten, nickel and iron. Twenty percent of the pellets I examined were misshapen gobs, and few were of the same size and weight. “Still, you get great patterns with HEVI•Shot,” Trulock says. “For some reason HEVI•Shot behaves like lead shot, and the tighter the choke, the tighter it patterns.” Trulock and Webb believe one reason HEVI• Shot patterns so well is because it’s half again as dense as steel shot. That heavy weight keeps the pellets flying in a straight line.

My 12-gauge patterns with HEVI•Shot were not all that great. However, in other tests, a Thompson/ Center Encore with a 20-gauge full-choked barrel turned in 40-yard patterns of 74 percent. The patterns fired by the 12-gauge Beretta and Winchester shotguns showed the tighter the choke, the thicker HEVI•Shot patterned. The Beretta Xtrema patterns at 25 and 40 yards retained nearly the same amount of pellets. That showed pellets that flew true at short range continued to do so at long range.

“HEVI•Shot is so heavy it retains its energy well at long range,” Webb says. “Because it does, 5s and 6s are more than adequate for all ducks at any sensible range.”

Steel

Waterfowl hunters have been shooting steel shot for years, and it’s well known that it generally patterns one choke step tighter than a choke is marked. Those dense patterns are the result of steel’s round and hard pellets that fly straight. The problem with steel is it quickly sheds its speed due to its relatively light weight. To try to correct that problem, manufacturers have developed steel loads with muzzle velocities of up to 1,500 fps. However, these higher speeds increase air resistance and tend to make the relatively light steel pellets flare at long range.

For instance, Remington’s Sportsman 31⁄2-inch load of 13⁄8 ounces of BB steel at a somewhat slow muzzle velocity of 1,300 fps patterned very tightly when fired from all three chokes in the Beretta Xtrema at 40 yards. However, the same amount and steel pellet size in the Winchester Supreme High Velocity shell had an increased speed of 1,450 fps, and its improved cylinder and modified patterns were 9 to 20 percent less than the Remington load. The Beretta’s full choke, though, brought both loads to nearly the same pattern percentage at 40 yards. For more duck hunting, visit our Louisiana Duck Hunting page.

“Most ammunition manufacturers say to not shoot steel in any choke tighter than modified, which has .020 inch of constriction,” Trulock says. “Our Super-Waterfowl Choke, though, starts with .030 inch of constriction and runs as tight as .050 inch, and we get 90 to 100 percent patterns with steel.”

How tightly some steel loads pattern at long range means little. Federal, Remington and Winchester sell economical steel loads for about $7 for a box of 25 shells, which is about one-fifth the cost of other nontoxic shot. The Nos. 2 and 4 steel shot fired from these 12-gauge, 23⁄4-inch shells, like the Winchester Xpert listed in the table, are pretty well spent by the time they have reached 35 yards. But that’s still plenty of reach for ducks dropping into decoys. “Really, you should pattern your load, gun and choke at the ranges you expect to shoot,” Webb says. “I like to err a bit on the side of too much choke though. Ranges change and you might need that tighter pattern for a long shot.”

Federal’s Tungsten-Iron

I’ve been impressed with Federal’s Tungsten-Iron since the first time I shot it jump-shooting ducks. I was used to shooting steel at mallards flying straight away, hitting them a couple of times in the rear end and hoping to knock them down. The first greenhead I shot at 35 yards with Tungsten-Iron No. 4s fell dead with one shot. When I examined the duck, I found the pellets had gone clear through the duck. One reason Tungsten-Iron penetrates so deeply is the pellets are perfectly round and smooth, so they don’t ball up in feathers. The pellets are also very hard and keep their shape during firing and are heavy enough to retain their energy at long range.

The 13⁄8 ounces of Tungsten-Iron No. 5s showed progressively tighter patterns at 40 yards shot through the three chokes of the Winchester Super X2. The patterns remained pretty much the same no matter what the choke in the Beretta shotgun. The 13⁄8 ounces of No. 5s was overkill, with over 150 pellets in 40- yard patterns. The 11⁄8-ounce load is more than plenty for any duck.

Kent Cartridge Tungsten Matrix

Kent Cartridge’s Tungsten Matrix shot is 95.9 percent tungsten and other malleable materials and 4.1 percent polymer. Matrix shot is soft enough to shoot through any shotgun that accepts modern lead loads. Matrix pellets are also round and full, with only a slight belt around the middle from the forming dies, so they fly straight. The 13⁄4 ounces of No. 1s patterned 80 percent at 40 yards from the Winchester Super X2. Any goose hit with this load is a flying fatality, because each one of these pellets carries 8.69 footpounds of energy.

The large No. 1 Tungsten Matrix fired its tightest patterns with a modified choke in the Winchester and Beretta guns. However, there wasn’t much difference between modified and full patterns in the Beretta.

The Tungsten Matrix No. 5s in the Winchester SX2 produced progressively tighter patterns the tighter the gun’s choke. The Matrix No. 5s also fairly well kept the same pattern percentages from 25 to 40 yards, only losing 3 to 8 percent at 40 yards. The Tungsten Matrix No. 5s patterned about the same at 40 yards fired through the Beretta with improved cylinder and modified chokes, then tightened up quite a bit with the full choke.

“I’m not exactly sure, in fact I don’t know why the same load can shoot such different patterns with the same choke,” Briley’s Webb says. Webb made a custom Briley choke tube for one customer, and the man stated the choke shot wonderfully even patterns, and he wanted a second choke just like the first for another shotgun. “I had all the dimensions on file and made the second one exactly like the first,” Webb says. “Well, I sent him the choke tube and the guy wrote back that it wouldn’t pattern worth a darn. So there’s some black art to making chokes.”

Trulock calls it “black magic. You can shoot the same load in two guns of the same brand and get different results,” he says. “Then you can swap the barrels and get still different patterns.”

Some shotguns, like the Winchester Super X2, have back-bored barrels with a bore diameter of .740 inch, compared to the standard bore of .729 inch of the Beretta Xtrema. “Larger shot patterns somewhat better in back-bored barrels,” Trulock says. “But we’ve also found smaller shot patterns more uniformly in the smaller bores. Once again, it’s black magic – I don’t know why.”

Webb has not seen any difference in patterns between back-bored and standard diameter barrels. “All I can see back-boring does is lessen recoil a bit because it reduces pressure,” he says.

Long forcing cones ahead of the chamber don’t help nontoxic shot pattern tighter either. “Nontoxic shots are pretty hard, so they don’t deform in the forcing cone,” Webb says. “All a long forcing cone does is stretch recoil over a longer period, so you feel less kick.”

Construction of the choke itself contributes the most to good patterns. A proper choke tapers gradually from bore diameter to the beginning of the constriction. The constriction should have a parallel long enough to hold the entire load, about 3⁄4 to one inch. The longer the parallel section, the tighter a load shoots. “You can take a modified choke and make it 4 inches deep and shoot great full choke patterns,” Webb says. “The old Browning A-5s had as much as 6 inches of choke, and they shot real tight patterns.”

The general guidelines on what amount of choke shoots best with all the different nontoxic shots will get you started. To fine tune the results requires patterning your shotgun to find the best choke and load combination for your waterfowl hunting demands. The general guidelines on what amount of choke shoots best with all the different nontoxic shots will get you started. To fine tune the results requires patterning your shotgun to find the best choke and load combination for your waterfowl hunting demands. If you’re looking to hunt for turkey, see our Alabama Turkey Hunting page for more information.

By John Haviland

This article and many more like it can be found by Successful Hunter Magazine. Visit them at www.successfulhunter.com