Many a turkey has fallen to a guy or gal with a fixed choked IC barrel.
Before screw in chokes, one patterned a shotgun with various loads for tasks to actually know what a shotgun did, not what the barrel said, or box of ammo said, or what some fella down at the hardware store said.
One tweaked the load, much in the same way a pistol, or rifle reloader, works up a load for a handgun or rifle.
Hard shot, even better copper or nickel plated hard shot , more better with Malto-Meal, Grits, Farina, - used as a buffer.
Winchester uses the trade name Grex for their buffering material.
Shot deformation is a Art & Science, as is all of shotgunning as Brister shared.
More pellets do not always mean a more dense pattern...
So one load , was 1 1/8 ozs of my pet shot size, number 5, of nickel plated, hard, with buffer.
To pattern , take a Silver Dollar and trace around it, and shoot that circle at various yardages.
Silver dollar about turkey head size.
Beats chasing down golf balls shot and looking at them...
"Stacking" the load refers to sticking into a fixed choke gun, the more open load for a flushing quail, and a more tight patterning one for the second shot.
A fixed full choke will shoot like a IC, a Mod, and Full, by stacking the loads.
Just me, screw in chokes in my opinion has become a crutch for too many folks, and some correct basics about shotgunning are not being learned, instilled and passed forward.
Not just for hunting, check out the choke tube spinners at a Sporting clay course sometime.
Not to mention, many a varmint has fallen to all sorts of loadings from all sorts of fixed choked barrels...
