BB: The BlackBore Choke is designed to prevent the shotgun shell wad from damaging the shot column as the shot column exits the shotgun barrel. The BlackBore Choke does this with specially designed ports that momentarily slows down the shotshell wad as it leaves the muzzle of the shotgun.
Question: Why is this so important?
BB: When the shotgun shell is fired, the wad/shot column gets a "kick" in the rear from the combustion gases. The modern plastic shotshell wad does a great job of cushioning and preventing the shot (enclosed within the wad petals) from touching the bore as it travels to the muzzle of the gun. At the instant the wad/shot column leaves the barrel/choke, the high pressure gases behind the wad pushes the wad into the rear of the shot column. This will cause “fliers” of a number of the individual pellets.
Question: How will the BlackBore Choke help me?
BB: The ultimate goal of firing a shotgun shell is to have all the pellets of the shell hit the intended target in a tight, dense and consistent pattern. Any dispersion of the individual pellets means that some of those pellets in the shot column will not reach the intended target! After all, the whole idea is to have your shotgun shell deliver the most dense, consistent shot pattern that is possible to the clay bird, bird or particular target.
Question: How does the BlackBore Choke deliver these great patterns?
BB: BlackBore looked at all the aftermarket chokes offered to shooters and conducted a LOT of pattern testing with these chokes at the pattern board. Looking at the results, BlackBore decided to design and develop a shotgun choke that would greatly improve the density and consistency of the patterns at the target.
Question: How does your design get this done?
Question: I see you have the BlackBore Choke for competition/sport shooting, but how about hunting?
BB: BlackBore HunterPro LT chokes will do a great job on dove, quail, pheasant and small game such as rabbit and squirrel.
Question: Just what is the BlackBore Choke made of?
BB: All BlackBore Chokes are manufactured using heat treated high tensile strength 17-4 PH stainless steel. This material is incredibly tough and will not normally rust. It is always smart to wipe the internal threads of the barrel and choke threads before installing the chokes to remove grit and grime. And, we recommend that the shooter use a good quality choke oil or grease on the threads.
Question: I see that you also manufacture a “tactical” style choke. What are these chokes for?
BB: BlackBore wanted to bring a specially choke for the home defense and LEO market. You might notice that the ports are visibly larger (with correspondingly wider knife blade surfaces) for this choke and are in a staggered pattern. The greater surface area of the knife blade ports do a better job retarding the types of wads used in the buckshot and slug loads thereby insuring better patterns for buckshot.
Question: Is it all right to use the shotgun shells with the so-called "flight-control" wad in your BlackBore chokes?
BB: This type of wad retains the shot in the wad until the wad/shot is well clear of the barrel. The "drag" surfaces on the outside of the wad slows the flight of the wad and lets the shot leave the wad with little interference. That is why the shooter will usually see improvement in patterns relative to other shotshells.
BlackBore has now done extensive testing with shotshells using this type of wad. Federal LE buckshot loads with the FliteControl* wad give very good patterns in BlackBore Chokes and the Federal Truball* slugs loads are also very accurate with BlackBore Chokes! Take a look at some of the typical patterns targets using these loads on the Tactical HD Pattern Page.
Note: Federal FliteControl and Federal Truball are registered trademarks of ATK.