solarpak wrote:Stoney,
The AYA Yeoman is a fine, solid, no frills gun and would have been made half and full choked.
If it was mine i would get it eased out to suit 'upland' style game, be it feathered and furred game. i would get the full choke barrel eased out to half - and this have both barrels at half choke. No need to then worry about which trigger to use first and half choke will take all game cleanly out to sensible ranges with the appropriate shot size and load.
Nice guns the AYA - as long as they fit you and you aint looking over the back of the opening lever!!
CK
G'day solarpak, Your right about the AYA mate. It has hand checkering and the stock and fore end are hand fitted even on a standard model as the Yeoman. The Poms rave about them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWRZoWLQAHI I went out and had a clay shoot with bigrich on Monday. He has a Leige sxs with 1/4 x 1/4. What I noticed was, bigrich hit almost every single clay close in with the 1/4 choke, but, if they got away the second 1/4 choke was not as effective. I tried his gun and it was so easy to bust the close clays every single time using a SxS. So with the AYA I was getting not as many early or short range clays perhaps because of the 1/2 choke, but, if I had to use the FULL it often cleaned it up but not always. So I sat down and had a think. I believe people purchased SxS's with appropriate chokes for their local hunting or a gun choked for specific hunting. If you were say hunting quail you may use a 1/4 x 1/4 or if you waterfowled over big water perhaps even FULL x FULL, pheasants 1/4 x 1/2 or 1/2 x 3/4. The AYA came from factory 1/2 x FULL so the owner could rebore if they so desired. Unless under specific hunting using a specific gun I don't see the advantage of both barrels having the same choke. You fire the first barrel and the game, feathered or furred hits the afterburners to get the hell away so a tighter second choke helps to reach out further. So in thinking of a more versatile combination to cover most situations I was thinking 1/2 x 3/4 or perhaps better 1/4 x 1/2. Anywho, that's my thoughts. Cheers.