Anybody re-cut a choke bore.............

Pics

Well, here is the beast in all its glory, not a collectors piece but a shooter, which is why I would even consider doing the choke thing.

32 inch long barrels, .700" diameters at the muzzle edge both barrels.

Thank you Jerry for the link to the Rem. 1894-1900 series..........this shotgun has the floating firingpin and Q designation in front of the #365204 serial number, so according to the link it is a 1906-ish mfg. date.............a bit older than I had guessed.

If I get the thing successfully re-choked, I hope little brother enjoys it....................I'll call it my "getting divorced and being set free gift" to him. The wife is cutting the cord after 30 years and taking him to the cleaners. On the upside he was never been allowed to hunt because she wouldnt stand for it, now he has been set free and making up for lost time.............Don

p.s. appologies for poor photos, not much of a photog., using an older camcorder in still mode without much resolution.


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Don Nielson said:
Just to further confuse the issue, I have all the tooling to put in removable chokes if you would like to use it. Pumpkin
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Don N., thanks for the generous offer, but putting removable chokes in this old shooter would be like putting a skirt on Tom Libby.....................you can only dress some things up so much..............thanks again Don J.
 
Kent Owens said:
Don,
This won't answer your question, but if I were you I'd leave it as it is. Those old doubles with both barrels choked full are getting rarer by the minute. It's value is better if it remains as it was made.
That said, you can use an expandable reamer to ream out some of the choke if you so desire. As someone said, take out a littel and shoot it and see how it patterns. It's not rocket science.
I have to laugh when I hear all the forcing cone lengthening stuff. Before I got into rimfire BR shooting I was into outlaw shotgun shooting, match guns shot for rmoney. Full custom barrels, bull barrels, 36X scopes, etc. BR shotguns, if you will. My guns had NO forcing cone at all! Just a 90 Degee transition where the unfolded shell ended and the bore began. They would shoot 1-1/8th oz. of #9 shot in a hole bout the size of a nickel at 20 yards! Step chokes, with two step downs in the ckoke and then a parrallel as long as the shot column at the muzzle.
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Currently, I am shooting alot of trap, much of it registered.

30 years ago, I shot skeet, and a gunsmith I knew would remove the forcing cone, if you desired. I never did that. But, I would now like to know if there are any positive attributes to doing this. Would you expand a little, on this subject.

For example, does the recoil signature change? Do patterns improve?

Thank you,
Longshooter
 
longshooter said:
Currently, I am shooting alot of trap, much of it registered.

30 years ago, I shot skeet, and a gunsmith I knew would remove the forcing cone, if you desired. I never did that. But, I would now like to know if there are any positive attributes to doing this. Would you expand a little, on this subject.

For example, does the recoil signature change? Do patterns improve?

Thank you,
Longshooter
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Long forcing cones do two things. First, by reducing the damaged shot caused by short forcing cones where the shot, over a short period of time, must merge from the shot shell bore size to the shotgun bore, the shot pattern is more even, even though it may be more dense.

Secondly, the long cone spreads the recoil shock over a longer period of time. It does not reduce the overall recoil but just makes it more of a push than a slam.

Don, we have seen Tom Libby in a skirt. It ain't pretty!! Knobby knees for starters.
 
Long forcing cone

Before you do any forcing cone work check the barrel wall thickness! Most American made shotguns have pretty robust barrels but if you put a 3" forcing cone on it you could thin out the barrels just in front of the chamber to much. A little choke work on barrels would be no problem and is a pretty low cost improvement if you decide to have a smith do it.

Dennis
 
I had the forcing cone lengthened in a 20" barrelled 12 gauge turkey gun I hunted with some years back. The gunsmith I took it to had done a lot of work for card shooters. He lengthened the forcing cone and then proceeded to make me an extended choke tube out of a section of 16 gauge barrel. He finished the choke leaving it very tight and then had me pattern it out back with the loads I intended to shoot. Then he turned a little more out with his lathe and we patterned it again. This went on several times until we thought we were at the point of no improvement and then he polished the bore. I took that little short barrelled gun to some turkey shoots that Fall and won probably one out of three that I entered and that was against some nice guns and regular shooters. I remember one old fellow shooting beside me and making fun of my little 20 inch barrelled gun who said he wanted to shoot beside of me so he would have a better chance of winning because some of my shot would surely spread to his target. After all was said and done he asked to see my target and all he said was "They G*d". You don't need a long barrel to have a tight choke.

As to your shotgun, I wouldn't touch those chokes.
 
David Sengelaub said:
If all you want to do is open up a choke take it to someone with a Sunnen Hone and have it honed out. .010" with a hone is no problem and the hone will self center in the bore. Another nice thing about the hone is you can sneak up on the size with no worry of chatter or going oversize.

Dave
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Hi Dave,

Is a "Sunnen Hone" a specialty hone of some sort that is capable of taking out more material than a standard hone?

I know when honing motorcyle or auto cylinders, it was virtually impossible to remove .010" diameter of material or it would take a very long time to do it. My experience has been that honing was only good for altering surface texture and/or removing .001-.002 material diameter.

I am not familiar with a "Sunnen", and maybe it is capable of more than the hones that I have used in the past................Don
 
Dennis D. said:
Before you do any forcing cone work check the barrel wall thickness! Most American made shotguns have pretty robust barrels but if you put a 3" forcing cone on it you could thin out the barrels just in front of the chamber to much. A little choke work on barrels would be no problem and is a pretty low cost improvement if you decide to have a smith do it.

Dennis
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Normally about 1" of forcing cone is all that is needed. Many factory cones are just 3/8" long.

If you are going into the card shooting game a longer cone will help some with the #9 shot loads or the 2-2-10 loads but you would never see the benefit in a field gun.
 
Don said:
Hi Dave,

Is a "Sunnen Hone" a specialty hone of some sort that is capable of taking out more material than a standard hone?

I know when honing motorcyle or auto cylinders, it was virtually impossible to remove .010" diameter of material or it would take a very long time to do it. My experience has been that honing was only good for altering surface texture and/or removing .001-.002 material diameter.

I am not familiar with a "Sunnen", and maybe it is capable of more than the hones that I have used in the past................Don
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Dave, after a web search, I see what you are getting at, a Sunnen hone would definetely get the job done, this is no hand drill and spring tensioned setup..............Don


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Michael Orlen

Don,
If you want good work at a reasonable price, send it off to Michael Orlen in Amhurst Mass. He can open up the chokes for you. Google his name & it will turn up.

If you want to spend a bunch of money on it, then Briley is an option. However screw in chokes on a old Remington SxS is just plain out of place, no matter who does them. JMHO.

Regards, Ron
 
Where does little brother live and what is he going to hunt? It might be fine as is for some things but I'd certainly prefer one side opened up a bit for general purpose upland hunting as I do it.
Of course the other part is that the stock on that shotgun is likely very crooked (lots of drop at heel) so it might not make that great a user unless it just happens to fit your brother. Most folks prefer a much higher comb than what you'll find on these old timers.
 
henrya said:
Where does little brother live and what is he going to hunt? It might be fine as is for some things but I'd certainly prefer one side opened up a bit for general purpose upland hunting as I do it.
Of course the other part is that the stock on that shotgun is likely very crooked (lots of drop at heel) so it might not make that great a user unless it just happens to fit your brother. Most folks prefer a much higher comb than what you'll find on these old timers.
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Arizona chukar, quail, and turkey..........tall, skinny guy that can flex to any position, with little experience, not locked into any stock fit, so will probably make this double work without any pre-conceived notions and have fun doing it.

You are correct, there is more than ideal heel drop, but still usable.....................Don
 
Don - I'd open up one side a bit and send him out to have fun - modified and full sounds good to me for western hunting.

Jerry - I think the idea was to keep your head up off the stock to avoid recoil. We didn't figure out 'til later that having our head in the same place every time made a difference in hitting things.
 
henrya said:
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Jerry - I think the idea was to keep your head up off the stock to avoid recoil. We didn't figure out 'til later that having our head in the same place every time made a difference in hitting things.
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Why would those old, tough, bearded, men be afraid of recoil. That was when men were men. 'Sides, recoil from black powder shotshell loads was less than we have now in most smokeless loads.
 
JerrySharrett said:
Why would those old, tough, bearded, men be afraid of recoil. That was when men were men. 'Sides, recoil from black powder shotshell loads was less than we have now in most smokeless loads.
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I wasn't talking about you!

;)
 
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