One of the great advantages of covering the shooting sports is getting the chance to try out new products and evaluate their effectiveness... so I can provide you, the reader, with info to help you decide whether or not that product is for you. One such product, which I used successfully on my one and only goose hunt to date, is Trulock's Super Waterfowl (SW) choke tube.

I was unable to find the time to pattern the tubes I had on hand prior to the hunt, so I proceeded on Mr. Trulock's advice that the larger steel shot used, the larger the tube I should use, and used the most open SW tube I had, which was marked 700 (I was using Remington Nitro Steel 3" shells, BB shot). This seemed to work out well, because I hit more geese than anyone else on the trip -- even our "guide," who was shooting 3 1/2" shells!

Afterwards, I got the chance to do some patterning and comparison between several choke tubes in my Remington 11-87 12 gauge shotgun, using various loads of Hevi-Shot along with the Remington BBs. The results of that session can be seen in the table below, and the results of some additional longer-range patterning are provided farther down.

(SW = Super Waterfowl tube; IM = Trulock Improved Modified tube; Rem Full = Remington factory full choke tube; HS = Hevi-Shot; Rem BB = Remington 3" Nitro Steel BB shot. Size in inches indicates pattern size at 30 yards.)

As you can see, the tightest of the SW chokes was the most consistent performer as far as delivering tight patterns with a variety of waterfowl loads (that same choke did worst at 50 yards, though -- see below). The 7 1/2 and 9 shot is too small for most waterfowl work, and was included for comparison purposes only. The SW chokes consistently outdid the Remington factory full tube with the Hevi-Shot, and beat them in only one hunting load, the Remington 3" steel BBs.

It's worth noting that after this short patterning session, during which I was using a Remington full choke tube borrowed from a friend, it came to my attention that firing these few loads of Hevi-Shot through it has scored the tube! Hevi-Shot is made of extremely hard tungsten-nickel, and it was obviously too hard for that tube, because it left scratches behind. The Trulock Super Waterfowl tubes, and even the Trulock IM tube, came through with nary a mark. To my mind, this makes them the obvious choice for use with hard shot like Hevi-Shot.

I only had two loads on hand for long-range patterning -- Hevi-Shot No. 4 and Remington Steel BBs. Predictably, patterns at 50 yards were quite a bit larger than they had been at 30 yards, so I made no attempt to record overall pattern size, as it was often larger than the target I was using. Overall pattern characteristics are what I was looking at in this case.

(SW = Super Waterfowl tube; Rem Mod = Remington factory modified choke tube; HS = Hevi-Shot; Rem BB = Remington Nitro Steel BB shot. Notes indicate pattern characteristics at 50 yards.)

At such a long distance, one would expect pattern performance to fall off a bit, but here the Hevi-Shot in the SW tubes gave better overall performance than the steel shot, or the Remington factory modified tube. It's tough to accurately describe the results of such a patterning exercise, but the patterns definitely leaned towards the SW tubes with Hevi-Shot... and interestingly, the Hevi-Shot patterns stayed in the center of the target, while the steel load consistently centered to the left. It's also interesting to note that the tightest tube shot the largest patterns with each load.

Again, Trulock's Super Waterfowl tubes did well, especially with the harder and heavier-than-steel Hevi-Shot, which more and more waterfowl hunters are turning to these days -- evenmoreso now that Remington has started loading Hevi-Shot in some of their shells. I can recommend Trulock's Super Waterfowl choke tubes without hesitation, and I expect one of them to be in my shotgun the next time I do any waterfowl hunting. They are tough enough to take a beating from even the hardest tungsten-nickel-whatchacallit shot without showing a scratch, they shoot nice patterns with heavier shot than steel... and they shoot steel well enough, too. I don't think you'll be disappointed if you decide to give them a try.

Trulock Web site