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Ok, its a nice indian summer day outside and I decided to do a little "home test" of chokes with my reloads.

*unscientific*
but IMHO a fairly good indicator of what happens to 21 yards.

The GUN: Citori XS Special, factory ported, invector plus choked factory overbore.
The CHOKES: 3 constrictions SKEET, LIGHT MOD, IMPROVED MOD. Factory Browining (briley) Midas choke.
The LOAD: STS hull, Fiocchi primer, promo powder 19.8 gr. cb windjammer clone wad #8 mag shot Lawrence brand 1 1/16oz of shot. (that's what the bar throws)


The results:
````````````````10 yards`````````````````````````````21 yards````````````
`````````````````u````````````````e```````````````````u`````````````````e
SKEET ..............11".......................17"..........................28".......................36"

LIGHT MOD.........8"........................13"..........................20".......................29"

IMPROVED MOD...6"........................7"............................14".......................21"


U= useable pattern, in my estimation for reliable breaks
E= Extreme pattern, no reliable breaks out here just a lucky BB

At 10 yards the wad went clean through the cardboard. It was to the center low 5" on the SK pattern. It was high 5" to left with LM pattern. It was right 4" with IM pattern.

AT 21 yards the wad was 13" low left with the IM pattern. LM and SK didn't hit the board.

The Moral to that story: "The wad is an unreliable indicator to where you are shooting."

You can see how the pattern opens up at longer ranges and the effect of choke on the pattern at 10 and 21 yards.

On the sporting course I typically shoot LM at almost everything. This is my typical load. For the long stuff I will typically go with the exact same load but use 7 1/2 shot.

I fired one of each load at the distance/choke, total 6 shots. Like I said unscientific test.

I applaud your efforts to better understand your loads and chokes with a little patterning. But, if you're going to be one of the relatively few shooters who actually take the time, you might think a bit more about what it is you hope to accomplish. For instance, what did you expect to learn by shooting your IM at 10 yards? If you're a choke changer, would you EVER do that? You say you normally shoot almost everything with your LM....wouldn't it be a more useful exercise to shoot that one choke, perhaps with a couple of different loads, at 10, 20, 30 and 40 yds?

Acually I did this to see what was going on at the shorter yardages, I was suprised too see so much difference in the patterns at 10 yards. I shot also shot at 21 yards to confirm what my thoughts were on shooting skeet with tight chokes.

I am not really a choke changer, If I change it would be from LM to IM as the distance increased. If I get a close target I usually will leave the LM in the gun.

I am considering shooting the 3 chokes again at 30 and 40 yards just to see.

I also did this to benefit others too as any info I found on pattern diameters is always based on a percentage at 40 yards. That doesn't say anything about what they are doing at closer yardages if you "run what ya brung"

I also learned that if you are going to shoot an IM choke at 10 yards you better be right on the target !!!

Compare a Cylinder choke pattern at 10 yards with the Lt Mod and Imp Mod patterns. Then you'll see why many of us use the most open choke we've got on targets inside 22 yards.

You are so right about that! Most of the time I shoot Cylinder / Skeet!!!

Thanks for posting this information. I don't have a place to shoot patterns easily, so I am glad to see this testing. Looks like your chokes are shooting about what they ought too at 21 yards.

Your welcome. I thought my skeet chokes may have been a little on the tight side but according to this test they are about what they should be. If I get a chance and some more nice weather I'll try stepping back to 30 and 40 and also testing my CYL and MOD just to see. But is is hunting season and I may not get to it for a while.

thanks for the post i also dont have a good place to pattern my gun.

Could you see what a Midas Mod will do?

Could you post picts?

I usually always practice skeet with an IM choke,
(there's virtually no difference whatsoever between IM and full in a scientific study)
i try to get smoke with the IM, to train myself to be in the middle of the targets,but if there's ever anything on the line $$$,
or just want to increase my odds of good scores, i put the skeet choke in.

I been shooting skeet now for about a month with the midas mod choke. It is sure a lot harder i usually only get around a 21 the highest i got was 24. keeps skeet a challenge.

I plan on testing the MOD, I just got back from bear hunting and it is raining today. Hopefully I can get to it in the next week or so but deer season is coming up.

What XS special do you have?
I have the 32" with the low rib.

good luck with the deer hunting

I also have the 32" XS Special low rib. I think it is a great gun. I had to add an adjustable comb, gracoil length of pull adjustable, and I had it re inletted so I could get more cast off.

Thanks, deer hunting is tough up here anymore, in Erie county a (legal) buck must have at least four points on one side. I haven't bought a doe tag in years.

OK I did some more testing at different yardages and I re measured all previous patterns, You will notice that some of the numbers are different. That is because I threw out some flyers and upon re evaluating patterns I thought the useable pattern may be a little tight in some instances. Things may have changed but not a whole lot.

10 yards
CYL........... 13 ................. 17
SK .............16..................18
IC ..............13..................13
LM .............12.5...............13
MOD ...........6 ..................7.5
IM ............. 5.5................ 7

21 yards
SK...............32.................36
LM ..............19 ................27
MOD .......... 17 ................25
IM ..............13 ................18.5

30 yards
IC .................21 ...............41+
LM ................27................40
MOD.............. 27...............34
IM ................ 23................30
F ...................22................28

40 yards
LM .................23.................41+
MOD ...............27.................36
IM ................. 25..................36
F ................... 26..................35

The first number is the useable pattern where I would think you'd get almost 100% breaks. the second is the extreme pattern ( I tried to exclude flyers) the breaks from the "u" number and out would be weaker breaks and maybe dusting of the clay outward toward the "e" number.

I was most suprised at the LM pattern, at 30 yards it was fair to not so good. Not nearly as tight as I thought it would be.

I was not suprised AT ALL with the IC pattern at 30. It was horrible "hotter core" and I use that term loosely, and the edges were bad with many open spaces and flyers. I surmised this on clays as I missed many I thought I should have hit.

I liked the MOD pattern at 30 and 40 and compared to IM and F at 40 it appears a though the MOD will do the job. ALSO at 21 yards the MOD looked real good and not too much smaller than the LM

Did not test IC at 21.

I am rethinking my choke strategy. SK at under 18 yards or so and MOD at everything else. The rest of the chokes stay home.

I will try that out on some targets and see how that works.

I wish I had a range finder to take to the course to see actually what the real distances are. Now that I stepped back to a measured 40 yards it seems as though many more shots have been between 30 and 40 yards and some closer to 40 than I thought. (At my home club)

thanks for sharing, very interesting, I was going to do some pattern board tests today but the range was closed. I will have to see if i can duplicate your findings and see what my 3/4oz loads look like at 21yds.

sorry to ask again but did you pattern the IC at 21yds? Its just that there is a large difference between SK and LMod

Thanks for sharing. Very helpful.

In his video on chokes, Gil Ash also works with "effective patterns" and he concludes that you should use Skeet for close stuff and Mod for everything else.

Bryan, really good stuff THANKS - For some time now, I have shot nothing but Modified, I do carry 8 1/2 spreaders for the in your face stuff. Only twice in 09 did I wish for some other choke and both time's I was wishing for MORE very long edgy targets

RTA48

You're welcome, after this test I was thinking the EXACT thing you are doing with the spreaders. The MAJOR problem with spreaders is you can't get them locally up here. Real premium Target loads can be hard to get off the shelves in any quantity and you can all but forget about getting FITASC type loads at any time. From what I have seen a modified and spreader may be the way to go. If spreaders perform like Ithink they might BUT the LM certainly wasn't what I thought it was (on paper).