All Choke tubes created equal?

[cgbills]

I am looking for a full choke for my 12ga 870. My question is, are all chokes created equal? Are there some that hold better patterns than others? It would seem to me if you got any decent quality choke they should all work the same; they are just little steel tubes after all. With that, is there any to stay away from?

[zippy13]

...they are just little steel tubes after all.
Not if they're titanium.

[Scattergun Bob]

A very tough question. It has a YES and NO answer. You have not talked about your shot size or what nitch you scattergun is filling, I will give you my best ;) anyway.

Yes, all full chokes are made to do the same thing, deliver about 70% of the pattern in a 30" circle at about 40 yrds. This is what the manufacture is trying to do. This is the sporting firearms standard for the word "full" choke.

I am not a high dollar scattergun guy. Basically I am a Ithaca, Remington, Mossberg and on occasion M-12 pump gun kinda guy. I say this to qualify what I am about to say. NO, each choke and barrel combo seems a bit different and the magic of it all is you pay your money & take your chances!!!!As of this writing I have used chokes by;
Pattermaster
Remchoke
Briley
Colonial Arms
Comp-N-Choke
Hastings
Trulock
Cutts
Most of the time all of these worked OK on most of the guns, with most of the ammo. However, sometimes on some barrels they did not live up to their advertising.

What was the best, by far Briley, and Pattermaster have been the best at consistently placing a :) on my face. Briley as a across the board hunting and gaming choke and patternmaster as the BEST buckshot choke going.

What to avoid, I have not had a great deal of luck with factory Remchokes, for bird shot.

Good Luck & Stay Safe

[BigJimP]

No, chokes are not all the same - not even from the same mfg. To really know what you have in a choke you will need to use a bore gague on the barrel - and then measure the choke so you can get the actual amount of constriction in thousands of an inch between the barrel and the choke.

The markings on a choke may be close - but if you have 4 full chokes from Browning, Briley, etc they will often vary a little.

Most of my target shotguns are Brownings - and I've relied primarily on Browning Midas Grade extended chokes for a long time with very good results. I also have some Briley extended chokes and I've found them to be very consistent as well. In chokes I think you'll often find you get what you pay for - and they are not cheap - but they should hold up for the lifetime of the gun, in my opinion.

[bcarver]

Chokes have a Parallel sections. After the choke constricts as much as it is going to their is a section that may be 1/4 to 1 1/2" in length with no futher constriction.
I feel that the length of this Parallel section should be as long as the shot column.
Also some chokes attempt to retard the shot cup long enough to allow the shot to exit the muzzle. This prevents the wad from blowing out the pattern.

[Death from Afar]

+1 Scattergun Bob. Briley chokes are fantastic, and just seem very consistant. WHY this is, i just dont know. I use one on my Benelli for Canada goose slaying, and they work a charm ( 6 Canadas down on sunday, ha, ha)

[SumToy Custom Barrel]

You have got alot to look at with a choke. The parallel is one thing and the taper that gets the shot down to the parallel. Then you can go into the wad stops and rifling. Then you looking into the chamber of the gun. You will find that some chokes work good with one chamber and not with another. You got to do as BigJim said. Work off the bore of the gun.
We do alot of custom chokes. Just to give you something to think about you can take a Browning and put a 680 in it and it will just hammer a card at 70 feet. You can take a 680 and put it in a Win or Rem and they will not touch the Browning. That is because of the %of take down from the bore to choke.

Find you a company that will work with you. As far over the counter chokes Kick's/Comp-n-chokes and Trulock are good company to work with. I talk to George at trulock and he is a good guy to deal with. I stop by and talk to the guys at kick's and they have a test range that you can try the chokes.

[USA123456789]

All choke tube are NOT created equal and they all have a large inpact on what happens out there (where ever you r shooting). That little steel tube has alot to do with the pattern and accuracy of the 870 that you have. The choke tube is the last peice of steel that the lead forms into. Lets say if its an XF turkey choke that goin to be really tight. if its a cylender it goin to be open what ever is a the end of that barrel will form the pattern of ur gun. I reccomend a XF choke for trapshooting ur on ur own for other sports:)