Hobby Sports

A few days ago I brought my Merkel Model 8 to Ivory Beads to remove the stupid HiViz bead that the previous owner had put on. For years Ive been wanting to change it back to a brass bead but Ive been too lazy to do so. Well Ive finally done it and have now received it back. While at Ivory Beads I had them check the chokes as I was uncertain exactly how the barrels were choked. From the patterning boards I always knew that they were choked very tight. I had thought that they were Full/Full. Jerry checked them and let me know they are actually Full/ X-Full.

Now that I have the bead "fixed" Im debating whether or not to open the chokes up. As this is basically my duck/chukar gun Ive always liked a tighter choke for this type of shooting but these chokes are a bit much. Although I have never vaporized any of my birds I have taken with the M8, even on the occasions that I took this gun out for quail, I think its time to open them up. IC/Mod may be appropriate but Im hesitant to do so as my Merkel 147SL and 47E are already choked in that configuration. I thought perhaps even opening it up to Cyl/SKT but Im not quite sure as this gun is rarely used for quail.

For the last year my 20 gauge Merkel 47E has been sitting on the sidelines even though its probably my favorite hunting gun. The reason is that it failed on me on the last time we shot. At station 7 on the skeet range the gun refused to fire on both barrels during a preseason shoot with Mike. We had no clue what happened, at first we taught perhaps the firing pin was broken but weve never heard of both pins breaking at the same time. The triggers would depress and you could hear the hammers drop although the round would not go off. We checked the primers on the shell and they were not punched. Cocking indicators were still cocked when releasing the triggers. I had no clue what was wrong with them.