Thursday, July 13, 2006
Carlson's choke tubes part 1
As you may have guessed from my passion (obsession?) with clay target shooting, there are several shotguns laying around my house. My "social gun" is a Remington 870P, my hunting gun is an Ithaca 37, the SCTP practice guns are Remington 1100's, but all of the serious target guns around here are break open Brownings. I shoot a BT-99 for singles and handicap, a Superposed for doubles, and the kids shoot slightly different versions of the Citori.
Kathy has informed me in no uncertain terms that she thinks sporting clays is "just for fun" and that she would rather clean toilets at the bus station than shoot skeet. Trap is her game. Period. End of discussion. Therefore, the fixed chokes in her Citori (.025 and .035 restriction) are just fine for what she does.
Nathan, on the other hand, enjoys every shooting game imaginable. If it involves turning money into noise, he likes it. His Citori also has fixed chokes (.010 and .020 restriction), but for him that is too limiting. He needs more variety if he's going to shoot everything from skeet to long yardage trap handicap with the same shotgun.
That's how Carlson's choke tubes come into the picture. Carlson's has an excellent reputation and a lifetime warranty, plus their turnaround time is reputed to be lightning fast. I called this morning and had a very nice conversation with Scott. He answered all of my questions, asked a few questions of his own, and made a several recommendations, such as using their extended length sporting clays tubes instead of the standard flush tubes for target shooting. The machine work to thread Nathan's barrels for interchangeable tubes would be $175 with 3 tubes included in that price. Additional tubes would be $29.95 -- $5 lower than the advertised price on their web site. I don't know if this was a package deal or if he just felt sorry for me, but I didn't argue. In the end I ordered 6 choke tubes : Skeet 1 (.005), Improved Cylinder (.010), Modified (.020), Improved Modified (.025), Full (.030), and Extra Full (.040).
Scott says that the machine work will take about two days of shop time. I sent the barrels out today, so the machine work should be finished next week and I should have the barrels back well before the end of the month.
Stay tuned for a full report on the quality of Carlson's work and a full patterning report on the new tubes.
_
Kathy has informed me in no uncertain terms that she thinks sporting clays is "just for fun" and that she would rather clean toilets at the bus station than shoot skeet. Trap is her game. Period. End of discussion. Therefore, the fixed chokes in her Citori (.025 and .035 restriction) are just fine for what she does.
Nathan, on the other hand, enjoys every shooting game imaginable. If it involves turning money into noise, he likes it. His Citori also has fixed chokes (.010 and .020 restriction), but for him that is too limiting. He needs more variety if he's going to shoot everything from skeet to long yardage trap handicap with the same shotgun.
That's how Carlson's choke tubes come into the picture. Carlson's has an excellent reputation and a lifetime warranty, plus their turnaround time is reputed to be lightning fast. I called this morning and had a very nice conversation with Scott. He answered all of my questions, asked a few questions of his own, and made a several recommendations, such as using their extended length sporting clays tubes instead of the standard flush tubes for target shooting. The machine work to thread Nathan's barrels for interchangeable tubes would be $175 with 3 tubes included in that price. Additional tubes would be $29.95 -- $5 lower than the advertised price on their web site. I don't know if this was a package deal or if he just felt sorry for me, but I didn't argue. In the end I ordered 6 choke tubes : Skeet 1 (.005), Improved Cylinder (.010), Modified (.020), Improved Modified (.025), Full (.030), and Extra Full (.040).
Scott says that the machine work will take about two days of shop time. I sent the barrels out today, so the machine work should be finished next week and I should have the barrels back well before the end of the month.
Stay tuned for a full report on the quality of Carlson's work and a full patterning report on the new tubes.
_
