So, one of the older guys at the range is getting out of reloading and we were thinking of buying his setup, second-hand. I've learned reloading with a different fellow, he had me over and we loaded a few boxes together. It doesn't seem too terribly hard.
I do like 2 3/4 over the 3, but I can shoot 3 without a problem.
What can you tell me about chokes? My shotgun came with 3, and my friend said that the one I've been shooting with is "modified". What are the differences?
Reloading is a hobby unto it's own and a good way to learn a lot about shotgun shells so if that's what you want to do then do it and don't worry about not saving money.
I can tell you lots about chokes but I'll try to keep it short and simple.
Chokes are a reduction of the inside barrel diameter close to the muzzle of the shogun barrel and how much reduction you use is dictated by how far you'd like to shoot. You can imagine it as sort of a funnel attached to the end of the barrel. For a very close target, you would use a "Cylinder" choke because it is the same diameter as the inside of the barrel, this will allow the shot column to expand as rapidly as possible so there is good pellet coverage for the close target. For a far away target you would use a tight choke such as a "Full" in order to keep the shot charge close together as long as possible. The shot column will still expand but if it expands too much then the shot pattern will not put enough pellets on the target for a clean break or kill. All of the other chokes are meant for use at various distances in between. Roughly speaking, a Cylinder choke should give you a 40 inch pattern at 25 yards and a Full choke should give you a 40 inch pattern at 40 yards and all other chokes work at the various distances in between with the extra full and turkey chokes going beyond 40 yards. These distances are going to vary with the load used and the gun they are used in but you get the idea.
Older shotguns and some of the newer ones don't have interchangeable choke tubes and instead just have the end of the barrel reduced to the choke that the shooter wants but most newer shotguns will come with 3 to 5 interchangeable choke tubes. These commonly are labeled as Cylinder, Skeet, Improved Cylinder, Modified and Full but there are a bunch more that fill the gaps in between these such as Skeet 1 and Skeet 2, Light Modified, Improved Modified, Extra Full, etc.
There is another and better method (IMO) of labeling the chokes than what we normally see in North America and it may help you to understand the size difference of the various chokes. This is a more accurate way to define what choke you are using since various guns have different barrel inside diameters. They call it "points of constriction" and it's the difference in diameter of the choke in thousands of inches in relation to the barrel or bore diameter. For example, a full choke should be .40 thou smaller than the bore diameter so if your bore is .733 inches then the Full choke should be .693 inches, or 40 points of constriction. A Modified choke should be 20 thou smaller than the bore so .733 minus .20 would give you .713 for 20 points of constriction. A Cylinder choke should be the same diameter as the bore of the gun for 0 points of constriction. As the bore diameter changes from gun to gun then so does the choke diameter for instance if your gun has a .745 bore then to get 40 points of constriction your full choke should be .705 inches.
As has already been pointed out, most experienced trap shooters will recommend Full chokes for trap. This is not a hard and fast rule and lots of people use Mod or Imp Mod very effectively at the 16 yard line. I've even used Imp Cylinder at 16 yards with no apparent change to my score but I wouldn't recommend that. Skeet shooters on the skeet range will use.... wait for it... Skeet chokes!!! They are supposed to be optimized for the target distances in the game of skeet. Sporting Clay's shooters will use all of the different chokes in their bag because of all the varying distances of the Sporting targets or, if your like me, I usually just put in tight chokes and use them for all the various presentations, maybe I'm just too lazy to change them....
If I were you I'd stick with the Mod choke or tighter for 16 yard trap.
