Any opinions on ported choke tubes?

The subject says it all. I'm really thinking of this more for clays than hunting, but I haven't had much luck finding shotgunners in rec.guns, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to try here.

: rec.guns, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to try here.

They're noisy and a pain to clean. I've got ported guns and non-ported guns and have shot ported tubes and non-ported tubes. In my opinion, porting the first shot barrel for a pair does help some to keep the barrels from rising but other than that, I don't have a use for it.

Tom wrote

For what purpose, Tom? Wad-stripping? They seem to help some with that. Ported bbls help reduce muzzle-jump, esp. with big (hunting or live bird) loads, but ported chokes don't do that.

Thanks to both for the info. That is the sort of thing I wanted to know.

Why is wad-stripping advantageous? Or is it? I'm a real newbie.

Thanks again

tom

Tom wrote

There is quite a bit of evidence indicating that, wonderful as our new wads are at sealing and at protecting the bore, they can overtake the shot column right in front of the muzzle, messing up what would have been a nice pattern. Some shooters advocate taking some step to 'grab' the wad at the muzzle and help it to open up. Once it opens up, the wind resistance prevents it from catching the shot column. Ported chokes are thought by some to be a good way to achieve this.

The theory is that your little light plastic wad crash into the lead shot cloud mass- and ruin (subjective) your pretty pattern.

There have been a plethora of wad-slowing chokes on the market, yet a dearth of hard evidence (as in before / after patterns) to show that it makes any difference at all- or, even that it doesn't hurt performance - - - Randy Wakeman

I'm against 'em. When you try to get tricky, things ball-up.