Skeet chokes have .005 inch of constriction and improved cylinder has .010 inch of constriction. Skeet chokes got their name because they are the most-used choke in the clay-shooting sport of skeet.

Skeet chokes are extremely effective at 21 yards, which is the average distance from the shooter to the target on a skeet range. This writer has shot a fair amount of skeet and I can tell from experience that I use skeet chokes on the skeet field. Why? Skeet chokes work great for this type of shooting.

Having a tight pattern at 21 yards is the goal in skeet shooting. This is based on the fact that in the sport of skeet shooting, you don't want to have gaps in your pattern (in the horizontal plain) where a clay target could escape through at 21 yards. This holds true in pheasant hunting as well.

If your pheasant-hunting situation were such that you'll get most of your shots at 20 to 25 yards, then a skeet choke would be an ideal choice for you to use. For instances where you hunt over a pointing dog in medium cover, and your standoff distance behind the dog is about three to five yards, then using a skeet choke should be a good choice. This is because by the time the bird clears the cover and starts to accelerate, you'll have about a 20- to 25-yard shot. If this distance were somewhat farther, say 25 to 30 yards, then an improved cylinder choke would be more appropriate to use.

Some pheasant hunters are good enough to actually wait and take the shot when the bird has reached the optimum distance for their particular gun. These fellows usually have spent hours practicing at a clay bird course, and have many years of hunting experience. They know exactly how their shotgun will perform.

Pheasant hunters who use double barrels can fine-tune their choke selection to increase their chances of bagging a bird. In the hunting scenario just mentioned, a savvy pheasant hunter could put a skeet choke in the barrel he shoots first and an improved cylinder choke in the barrel he shoots second.

The concept here is to use a choke in the barrel you're going to shoot second. The second choke should give you a more downrange pattern (a pattern that will stay together in the horizontal plain) should you miss on the first shot. Or you might get a chance for a double (shooting two birds one after the other within a few seconds).

When hunting with flushing-type dogs in medium to thick cover, you may want to use a modified choke, which has .020 inch of restriction and will put 60 percent of the pellets in a 30-inch circle at 40 yards.

Flushing-type dogs do not point pheasants, but rather scare them into the air. Flushing dogs are usually trained to hunt at a maximum of 25 to 30 yards from the gun because if they flush a bird at this range of distance, the escaping ringneck will be at 40 yards distance before you can say, "Doggone it, I missed." At 40 yards, you'll need a tighter-holding pattern to improve your odds of knocking the bird down.

Pheasants are pretty fast fliers; they have a top speed of about 45 mph. However, their speed is no match for a swarm of shotgun pellets traveling at about 1,200 feet per second (fps). It's kind of like an F-14 jet racing a biplane.

Some of the loads available nowadays have velocities of 1,350 fps, which is extremely fast, and rule out any possibility that a pheasant is going to outrun your shot stream. In fact, even the loads that produce slower velocities are faster -- much faster -- than a pheasant.