How big for steel?

[boattail]

I have a Pointer Pup .410 that has a removable choke. The choke the gun came with is Full choke. I want to safely shoot steel through this gun and have started to open up the choke. I cannot find any chokes that fit this gun so I am simply opening mine up. The entrance to the choke was .398 and the exit was .388. I have the choke opened to .402 currently which is modified....how far should I take it? Should I go to improved around .404 or stop now?

I want to get it right the first time without making the choke too wide.
Thanks in advance!

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[gmerkt]

Conventional wisdom is, modified is the greatest restriction that steel shot should be used in. Also, the smaller the shot size, the less of an issue it is.

You might be better advised to shoot something like bismuth or one of the other lead substitutes rather than steel. Particularly since three inch .410 shells have the longest shot column of any shot shell in current use. Crowding all that steel shot through the choke makes me nervous. Also, those steel shot loads only carry 3/8 oz. of weight in .410.

Hopefully some shotgunners more knowledgeable than I will post on this.

 

[boattail]

I have never seen Bismuth for sale here in any quantity. I'm looking for cheap, available ammo to shoot and not have to worry about what it is when I pull the trigger. I have 3" steel and a some lead shot for now. Ammo availability sucks right now. I think I will take it to .405 on the exit end and see how it does. I'm glad I checked this as Full on this gun is ten thousands smaller than standard full chokes.

This isn't going to be any bird gun or anything I use a lot. It will be a truck gun and used for taking out critters around the house. My wife bought a .410 for her house gun and her friend wanted one and all we could find at the time was this Pointer Pup. The lady friend cannot operate the controls as it takes 30# of force to pull the action release. This design has a trigger in front of the trigger guard that resets the firing pin and then opens the action. It's a hammerless design meant for youths....too bad you have to be a grown man to open the action! Anyway, I found an old Marlin 59 for her and I am taking the Pointer for myself as it folds in half when opened, great for a truck gun.

My progress on opening the choke up is slow and I have a ways to go yet as I measured the inlet side too close to the end the first time. I have taken off .002 on the intake and .005 on the exit so far.

Doing a little more reading an extra full choke is .394. Mine was .388...holy cow! I'm really glad I decided to open mine up. I'm now at .398 (I measured wrong the first time) on the inlet and .394 on the exit. I still have .013 to take out of the exit and .004 on the inlet to get me to .402. I need to figure out a faster way of honing this out!

 

[boattail]

I got after it again today and took it out to .402 for a modified choke. I honed and then polished it out. It turned out pretty nice. next trip out I will bang some steel shot through it and see how it does. It sure beats the Super Full that is was from the factory at .388

 

[Hemlock]

 

[boattail]

That is a different chart than the two I found. I went .008 for modified. That chart says that is improved. I should be safe either way.