Need help understanding a shotgun choke.

[chubei]

I have a remington shotgun with a herter's inc. screw-in choke. The choke has these markings: FULL, IC, IM, SM, MOD, and SF. The choke limits me to only one turn. I need to know how to use it PROPERLY. Example: I want to dove hunt using #6 steel shot but dove hunting requires IC or MOD choke. Do I leave the choke at the full marking (this is where it is set at as of now) or do I turn it to IC or MOD?

I do not have a choke manual.

[USPENAMC]

i think modified would be best try setting it on modified and see if you see any difference shooting birds.

full choke as i understand it sends a tighter group of shot limiting more your kill area probably you would want to use this for duck or geese that need more concentrated amount of pellets in a kill area.. now for doves that take less to go down and that fly faster and more awkward modified will give you a bit bigger CIRCLE of lead or steel as you can say.

[Wade Joseph]

Imagine that the end of the barrel is like a Brinkman mag light. Full choke would be like the very narrow beam of light, Improved cyl. (IC) is the very wide beam. Modified is inbetween.

Some examples would be

FULL for ducks/geese/turkeys...

IC is for closer fast moving birds like quail, doves, grouse.

MOD works well for pheasants and ducks over dekes.

Hope this helps.

[bergie]

Your best bet is to go out and pattern the gun and shells, different brands of the same shot # might act different make sure there are no big holes in the pattern, get a few big pieces of cardboard and go out and shoot you will figure out real quick what choke you want to use.

[chubei]

Thank you guys for the help. I will go out monday and try to shoot shots on cardboard. The information is helpful especially to a beginner like me.