24 
HIGH PHEASANTS : 
Full'Choke, Modified-Choke, and Cylinder-Guns in connection 
with Shooting High Pheasants, 
I found no great difference between a gun with full-choked 
barrels giving a pattern horizontally at 40 yds. of about 200 
in the regulation 30-in. circle, and barrels giving a pattern of 150, 
when both were tested at heights of 40 and 50 yds. The 
pellets scattered with the one gun almost as much as with the 
other ; though the full-choked barrels, chiefly owing to thick 
clusters here and there, together with their usual fault of pellets 
in twos and threes touching one another, certainly had an 
advantage in the number of shot-marks in the selected 30-in. 
circle. 
It is doubtful if a full-choke gun will kill very high pheasants 
better than one that makes a pattern of 140 to 150, and we all 
know that the former is much the less effective weapon to use 
at ordinary ranges by reason of its close and usually 
irregular shooting. At a height of 40 yds. the full-choked 
guns sometimes gave very patchy patterns, and shot generally 
with less regularity than did a modified-choke. 
It is an undoubted fact, and a great handicap to a shooter 
who uses one, that, owing to the jostling of the shot in the 
barrel, a full-choke seldom shoots straight to the mark, how- 
ever correctly it is aligned. This, I have found, will occur 
even when the gun is fixed in a rest to hold it absolutely 
true and steady. 
For instance, when testing a full-choke for its pattern, it is 
most difficult to place the bulk of the shot-charge within a 
previously drawn 30-in. circle. The result is, that to obtain 
the stated pattern of the gun a selected 30-in. circle has to 
be taken after each discharge, here or there wherever the 
