Jug-Choking

What exactly is involved in jug-choking a barrel?

Marc Adamchek said:

What exactly is involved in jug-choking a barrel?

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Having an "expansion chamber" honed out just back in from the muzzle some, that looks something like this:

Thanks, Bill. Is it something most contracted builders can easily do, or is it a harder process?

Marc Adamchek said:

Thanks, Bill. Is it something most contracted builders can easily do, or is it a harder process?

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I don't think the general builder is set up for it...some special equipment involved along with the know how.

I've had a couple GM barrels done by a retired guy out in Iowa, and I had my current .62cal Early Virginia barrel done by Danny Caywood at Caywood Guns before I sent the barrel to Matt Avance at TVM for the build.

They're well worth the money as far as I'm concerned and Caywood's work is just as advertised on their website...PRB accuracy is still outstanding...mine is truly one of those: "If I could only have one Flintlock..."

It gives more range with tighter patterns from what I hear, if one is seriously into the PC/HC game it falls into the last half of the 19th century I believe.

tg - I believe you're right, in fact a ways into the 2nd half. I've got a double fowler built in 1860 and it's straight cylinder all the way. It's a Purdey, so you know if choking was available they would have used it.

I've got 5 fowlers, all cylinder, am just thinking about maybe getting the new one being built jug choked to check it out, if I can do it without feeling like a turncoat! I've heard such wonderful reports on jug choked guns, mostly from people here I highly respect. I still am committed to finding the best loads for the cylinder guns, but I guess I'm just really curious.

As an aside, if anyone out there knows when choking was "invented" and/or when it came into common use, please let us know.

My son has a gun that Mike Brooks got Lowell Tennyson to jug. It shoots shot at about I-Mod and he has been satisfied with ball performance although we don't try to make fowling pieces shoot like rifles since we shoot those as well. The jugging is a little rougher than I have seen of the one example of Danny's work but roundball will be able to answer that better.
There are some pretty detailed threads on choking history in this smoothbore section and even some on the jug choke. Forget all chokes for the correct 18th century piece. I have been fortunate to be able to persuade a friend to cone a muzzle or two for me and I always prefer that kind of bore alteration being pc minded. Although not choking in any form, it gives the muzzle a correct look in the bore and was thought to improve patterning in the day sometimes along with the same treatment at the breech end or having the breech "roughened".

"It's a Purdey, so you know if choking was available they would have used it."

I would agree that jug choking was unusual in 1860. However, I would add that James Purdy's clientele was very conservative, and could well have been remarkably slow to adopt any new technology (although jug choking is hardly visible, and therefore less suspect).

The box lock was developed in Purdy's shop and yet Purdy boxlocks are not common. Edward VII once had "hammers" installed on a new internal-hammer sidelock because a gun "has to have hammers."

I am not trying cast any aspersions on James Purdy. I only suggest that he had to respond to his clientele.

GreenMt said:

I would agree that jug choking was unusual in 1860.

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I have an article collected from a British magazine many years ago, The Gun Collector, which casts serious doubts on Kimble's claim to have invented choke-boring. In it is the statement that one Russell M. Faburn tried to imitate one of Kimble's early guns, misunderstood what the choke was and patented a honing system to make it. His choke sounds like jug-choking, and he patented the method in 1872. The regular restricted-muzzle type choke was apparently developed during 1870-71.
W. W. Greener is given credit for developing and making practical the type of chokes we are familiar with, and he did that after being defeated by choked guns of some sort in gun trials in 1873.

So, if you want your shotgun choked in any way and still PC/HC, it should be post-Civil War and most likely a breech loader.

I wish I could make the article available, because it's interesting reading to anyone who likes shotgun history, but the link to it is no longer active and, at 10 pages, I think it's too long to copy in a post.

Spence

Everybody in Business has to respond to its clientele, but savvy marketing of new innnovations is also a hallmark of well run businesses, and Purdey's, like all the top London gunmakers of the day, were well aware of this.

There is always controversy whenever change is introduced, particularly dramatic change.

Just as there was much controversy in the 1850's whemn breechloaders were introduced, apparently so it was in the 1870's when WW Greener started heavily advertising his choked guns in THE sporting magazine of the day 'The Field' in 1874.

This magazine organized a trial of the two systems in 1875 and proved conclusively that choke boring produced tighter patterns at long range.

However, there was still much arguing between the 2 camps and nothing was settled as far as the public was concerned.

Taking advantage of the uproar Purdey's put on a live pigeon competition on their shooting grounds in 1875, cylinder guns by Purdey, Boss, Lancaster and Grant versus choke-bored guns by Greener.

The cylinder guns won by a slim margin, and the controversy continued because many argued that the best gunners were on the cylinder side.

The next year,Purdey's put on another competitive live pigeon shoot between the two types of gun, and this time the match was won by a large margin by a gent shooting a choke-bored Greener.

Apparently from then on, nobody looked back and increasingly it was shown at the many gun clubs that choked guns were better by far for getting game.

Purdey's as well as all the major gunmakers started building choke bored guns as game shooters began to appreciate them more and more.

(The above information was paraphrased from Donald Dallas' wonderful book on the definitive history of PURDEY.)

I haven't been able to find anything on their boxlock guns yet: The trail goes from flint to percussion to back-action pinfire to back action hammer to sidelock hammerless, but admittedly I haven't delved too deeply into it.

However, it has become apparent that there were always individuals who held on to a particular type of gun simply because they preferred it and they had enough money and clout to commission them made.

I believe their last percussion muzzleloaders were made in 1894 for some Lord or another.

And here in the 21st century, just look at all of us, shooting our flinters and caplocks and comparing choked bores to cylinder!

In W.W.Greener's book "The Gun" he lists a trial of 1859 which was won my a Mr. Pape who also claimed to have invented the shotgun choke. Mr. Pape's winning pattern put only 44% of his pellets in the 30" circle at 40 yards. That's a very good cylinder bore pattern and several other guns did nearly as well.
In the London Gun trials of 1866 again Mr. Pape was top shot but again with a pattern of only 45%.
In the Field Gun Trials of 1975 W.W.Greener won with a choke bored gun and a winning pattern of 63%, well ahead of second place Pape who had 28 others very close on his heels.
Both Kimbel and Pape claim the invention of choke boring but two thing are very apparent from the trials. One is that in 1866 Pape's patterns were very little if any better than cylinder bore.
And two, by 1875 Greener had perfected choke boring to far outstrip Pape and all other competitors.
Greener's method of choke boring was copied by virtually all makers and is still the standard today, even though the method of barrel making has change. This was the now common taper choke where the whole length of the bore is of one diameter up to about the last two inches where it tapers down to the final choke.
Greener shows a diagram of a recess or jug choke but offers no comment as to when or by whom it was invented. The gun trials do make it clear that in 1866 no one was getting very good results from whatever method of boring they were using. But in 1875 Greener showed the world the superior results from a true choke bored gun.
Greener does not claim to be the inventor but he certainly did the development work to bring the invention to final form sometime not very long before 1875.
I can't prove but believe jug choking came along after Greener's work and was just what it is today, a method of adding choke to a barrel originally bored straight cylinder.

Yessir, Coyote Joe, you've got the story as straight as can be, from what I've gathered.

CoyoteJoe said:

I can't prove but believe jug choking came along after Greener's work and was just what it is today, a method of adding choke to a barrel originally bored straight cylinder.

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You may be right about the timing, that's what I always thought was the case. But, in the article I referenced it sounds very much like jug-choke got it's start about 1872, before Greener got involved.

"Faburn had seen one of Kimble’s guns, but unable to examine it from the breech end, had concluded the choke was a recess cut behind the muzzle of an otherwise-cylindrical bore. He invented an expandable reamer for the purpose (U.S. Patent 128,379, issued June 25, 1872) and sold it widely in the western states.

He also named the process “choke-boring”.

Spence

"the article I referenced it sounds very much like jug-choke got it's start about 1872,"

If that is the case where does that put it as a valid topic for the time frame of this forum?

tg said:

If that is the case where does that put it as a valid topic for the time frame of this forum?

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Behave now, tg. :grin: if we don't talk about jug chokes, what are we going to talk about?

Maybe we can agree that it's "old-timey" and just look at the ground when someone wants to talk actual dates. :wink:

Spence

Closer in time than say, steel barrels?

I do not care what any one uses, I just wonder where the line is drawn at times when it comes to subject mater that focuses a later post forum technology that is clearly an advantage over what would have been used in forum time we allready really stretch this with bullets, how about screw chokes? I bought a fowler with choke tubes but use the open bore only, the jug thing is more and more common here I just wonder if I am the only one seeing the subjects slipping away from the keeping trdaition alive ideal,again it has nothing to do with using the technology just whether it belongs here or not.How good were the optics in the late 1890's?

I am talking technology that offers a performance advantage, and is not something used to keep cost in control that really offers no particu;ar advantage.

Mr. tg- Well, the choking and jug choking of barrels seems to have started in the latter half of the 1800's along with percussion doubles, and that should be (in my opinion) long ago enough to fit into a forum on traditional muzzleloading guns. If a guy is trying to represent a Revolutionary War or French & Indian war era participant then chokes wouldn't be right, but then neither would a percussion double barreled shotgun. I hope that no restrictions are needed on the subject of chokes.

So keep your pinky out of folk's barrels and it likely won't come to bother you as you'll never know. I have a jug choked T/C New Englander but that doesn't represent any period anyway so it just makes it more effective for my uses (I'm usually too slow to smack a grouse at cylinder bore range).

Now, if someone is at a period flintlock turkey shoot and doesn't disclose he's using a choke THAT might be dirty pool.