Probably a dumb question, but I have owned by Beretta A390 since HS (30 years) and still using the original choke tubes. I generally only use modified, but have bought a turkey tube. I have never patterned it (except for turkey tube), but probably should. Wondering if the tubes wear out after a lot of rounds? My two oldest boys have used it for trap in HS and its certainly had several thousand rounds through it. Thoughts?
I would doubt it but it’s worth a check with a dial caliper and compare it to the proper bore size for the choke provided by Beretta.
I used to hang around guys that shot literal thousands of rounds every spring and fall chasing snow geese. I’ve never heard of them concerned with wearing out a choke tube. Not saying it can’t happen but for your average dude who puts a box of shells or even a few hundred rounds shooting trap a year through it I doubt it’s of any concern. If you think about it, the plastic wad is what’s rubbing (for the most part) on hardened steel. That’s gonna take lifetimes to wear even a tiny bit
I am curious now though
Cool, I will have to pattern it once just to see how it looks. Never had any problems hitting anything I was just curious. I am however going to swap my Beretta modified into the Girsan when it gets here to compare them to see how they compare as well.
Being that (technically) the only material that contacts the choke tube is the wad, I would have a VERY hard time believing that a choke tube will ever “wear out”. What can happen though is a build up of wad material. Once a year I will take a brass shotgun barrel brush, chuck it in a drill, and run it through my tubes until they’re clean.
Are most of you guys running aftermarket tubes? Honestly I have never changed mine from whatever came in it.
Mine are stock, but I do think I will invest in some Carlson extended tubes since I have heard great things about them.
Mine are stock, but I do think I will invest in some Carlson extended tubes since I have heard great things about them.
I run Carlson Cremators in my A300, but will wait to buy a set for my Franchi 20 ga. until I get a chance to pattern it. No use in buying aftermarket tubes if the factory ones pattern sufficiently.
I run Carlson Cremators in my A300, but will wait to buy a set for my Franchi 20 ga. until I get a chance to pattern it. No use in buying aftermarket tubes if the factory ones pattern sufficiently.
Good point. Did you find much of a difference between your stock ones and the Cremators?
I also have never patterned a shotgun, ever. I hunt with them if they kill birds I guess I was happy. Should do it anyway, maybe I could be better.
I run Carlson Cremators in my A300, but will wait to buy a set for my Franchi 20 ga. until I get a chance to pattern it. No use in buying aftermarket tubes if the factory ones pattern sufficiently.
I’ve been very impressed with the factory choke tubes of my Franchi 20g. Bonus – mine came with the extended chrome choke tubes which I think look pretty dang sweet.
I have a Benelli M1 I bought in 1995. Tried a Patternmaster around 2000 since they were all the rage. Not any better than the factory choke which I’m still using. I almost exclusively shoot steel shot which should be more detrimental than lead but the wad is supposed to protect the barrel from the shot.
Probably a dumb question, but I have owned by Beretta A390 since HS (30 years) and still using the original choke tubes. I generally only use modified, but have bought a turkey tube. I have never patterned it (except for turkey tube), but probably should. Wondering if the tubes wear out after a lot of rounds? My two oldest boys have used it for trap in HS and its certainly had several thousand rounds through it. Thoughts?
No, a choke tube won’t wear out. As Waldo says, first the only thing touching the choke is the wad. And secondly, even running thousands of rounds through it, if the vast majority are trap loads, then they were lead shot and lead is far softer than the steel that the choke tube is made from. So the lead would take the hit, not the choke tube.
I have spoken about the issue of a modern shotgun wearing out with a couple of owners of a dove lodge in Argentina. The number of rounds fired at these dove lodges makes for the ultimate torture test, because of firearms regulations, everyone who travels to Argentina now shoots with the outfitter’s guns because bringing your own is impossible.
So these lodges have shotguns that fire over a thousand rounds PER WEEK during the season. The lodges keep careful track of the rounds fired because the hunter is charged for every round, so the lodges aren’t guessing, they know EXACTLY how many rounds went down the tube of each gun. One outfitter I spoke of says they average 12,000 to 14,000 rounds PER YEAR through each gun they own. Some of the guns get many more than that, that’s just a “fleet average”. They break ejectors, occasionally springs, but I would say most outfitters down there will have multiple guns in the stable that have shot over 100k rounds easily. If they aren’t replacing choke tubes and barrels, certainly a single owner will never need to worry about it.
Cool, I will have to pattern it once just to see how it looks. Never had any problems hitting anything I was just curious. I am however going to swap my Beretta modified into the Girsan when it gets here to compare them to see how they compare as well.
Yes, definitely pattern any new gun. I made a total rookie mistake just this past year and assumed (wrongly!) that my son’s new shotgun would basically pattern the same as the other 12 gauges I own. WRONG! He went from shooting 20-something rounds to shooting in the low teens. Ug. What did I do to the kid? Well, it turned out that when the coach suggested we do what I should have done in the beginning, everything was revealed. The factory choke tubes that came with his new TriStar were just super, super tight compared to all the other shotguns I have. The modified shot like a tight full choke and even the IC is at least a tight modified. I just swapped out chokes for a set of normal Beretta-style chokes so I know where they pattern, but the bottom line is chokes can be very different.
Are most of you guys running aftermarket tubes? Honestly I have never changed mine from whatever came in it.
I don’t necessarily buy into the idea that aftermarket chokes pattern better. In fact, I rarely pattern my gun at all… 
However, I beat the ever loving $h1t out of my shotguns in the field so an extended choke helps to protect the end of the barrel. I’ve had to file on my barrel on an 870 years ago when my idiot self field peened the threads…never again.
I patterned my turkey gun when I started using Winchester Long Beard XR. It has shot-lok technology and claimed that it extended the effective killing range out to 60+ yards. Prior to this, my effective killing range on a turkey was about 35 yards. I was skeptical of this so I tried it myself at the range.
The results were astonishing. It was sending just as many BB’s on target almost twice as far. There is a layer of polymer around the BBs inside the shell that hold the BB’s on target at a longer range before they begin to disperse. I have used that ammo since 2016 for turkey hunting and I have killed turkeys at 50 and 61 yards using it.
After I shot that Tom at 61 yards, I contacted Winchester through email and sent them of a photo, along with the fact that I had used their ammo. They sent me back a Winchester Long Beard XR banner for my garage, a coffee cup, and a stainless steel thermos in return. Plus they posted my photo in the monthly edition of NWTF magazine on a Winchester advertising page.
After I shot that Tom at 61 yards, I contacted Winchester through email and sent them of a photo, along with the fact that I had used their ammo. They sent me back a Winchester Long Beard XR banner for my garage, a coffee cup, and a stainless steel thermos in return. Plus they posted my photo in the monthly edition of NWTF magazine on a Winchester advertising page.
So you are a celebrity now too!
So you are a celebrity now too!
Lol very minor I guess you could call it that
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>waldo9190 wrote:</div>
I run Carlson Cremators in my A300, but will wait to buy a set for my Franchi 20 ga. until I get a chance to pattern it. No use in buying aftermarket tubes if the factory ones pattern sufficiently.Good point. Did you find much of a difference between your stock ones and the Cremators?
Not with lead upland or trap loads, but I definitely saw a more even pattern with steel, which can be more picky with choke constrictions per the pellet size.
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