Forcing Cone

[spotty]

I shoot a 12 ga. Rem. Express Super Mag. ###I will be using this gun primarily for turkey. Should I play around with a few choke tubes and/or lengthen the forcing cone? ###Would a longer forcing cone benefit any turkey gun, regardless of the tube being used? ###Also, what tube would you recommend to use with this gun, shooting 3" or 3 1/2" shells? ###Any other information or suggestions for a good set up for this gun is welcome.

Thanks....

[Gun Docc]

Hello spotty,

yes lengthening the forcing cone will most definately help almost any turkey gun as i have been doing this type of work for almost 20 years for the public and not one time have i ever seen a shotgun that it did not help to some extent.

as for choke tubes ?
there are so many good ones on the market today that most any of them will give you better pattern results.

just to mention a few , Hastings, mad max, comp-n-choke , rhino , kicks and many more.
for most turkey loads any of the above in a size of .650 to .660 would shoot very well as long as your using lead shot and not the new heavyshot

another thing to keep in mind is that the tighter the choke tube gets the longer it needs to be to perform well
all of the above are anywhere from 3 inches to 3 1/2 inches long and do their job of tightening your patterns.

hope this helps a bit,

[spotty]

Gun Docc, ### Thanks for the reply and info. ###Is there a standard length to extend the forcing cone? ### Should the longer cone permit the use of a smaller i.d. choke? ### Kicks, Comp-n-Choke, and a few other choke tube web pages recommend the .665 for Remington. ### Should their recommendations be followed with a lengthened cone or, are there recommendations for "out of the box" guns? ###

I've been using a Rem. xfull (.687) tube in the gun. I picked up a ported Star Dot tube (.668) to do some comparison shots to pattern the gun early this week. ###If I do have the cone worked,###should I go with a tighter choke tube?

I just want to weigh my options with the tubes and the forcing cone. I'd like to try a smaller tube (.655-.660), but I guess it's best to wait til after I have the barrel worked.

Thanks.... ###

[Gun Docc]

Hello spotty,


The forcing cone is the area just ahead of the chamber that is designed to introduce ###the shot charge into the actual bore of the barrel.

This transition has alot to do with how the gun performs with given loads. Most factory guns have a forcing cone length of only 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch long and this short abrupt taper into the barrel deforms a lot of shot upon firing a given load.

By lengthening the forcing cone out to around one and one half inches or longer , this reduces the angle of the taper leading into the barrel and reduces the deformation of the shot charge.

You can improve patterns by as much as 15 percent or more and also the long forcing cone will reduce recoil because the shot charge has less resistance going into the barrel hence the less felt recoil

regardless of what choke you use the longer forcing cone helps to reduce the amount of deformed shot upon firing and this in turn gives you better patterns and most of the time you will see around a 15 percent improvement in the patterns.

the normal length for a long forcing cone is 1 1/2 inches long

as for which choke to use right out of the box ?
i would go with a .660 dia. tube that is at least 3 inches long for shooting most turkey loads.

Later,