W. W. Greener - Choke Bores

Choke Bores

The introduction of choke bores was largely responsible for the fame of the W.W. Greener name. The invention of choke boring is usually attributed to American gunsmiths. The first known patents for choke boring were granted to a Mr. Sylvester H. Roper, an American inventor and gunsmith, (U.S. Patent 53,881, Improvement In Revolving Fire-Arms, April 10, 1866; and U.S. Patent 79,861, Improvements In Detachable Muzzle For Shot-Guns, dated July 14, 1868.) This was followed by a patent claim in London by Mr. Pape, an English Gun maker, whose patent application was six weeks too late to the 1866 Roper patent. Mr. J.W. Long, in his book "American Wildfowling", credits a Mr. Jeremiah Smith of Southfield, Rhode Island, as the gunsmith who first discovered the concept, as far back as 1827.

While American gunsmiths were the pioneers of the choke boring system, they had not really progressed beyond the elementary stage and their guns would lead, throw irregular patterns and not shoot straight.

W.W. Greener's first intimation of the choke formation was derived from instructions given in a customer's letter, in early 1874. The customer's instructions described a choke, but did not give any details on the size or shape, or how it was to be obtained. Hence, W.W. Greener had to conduct many experiments to determine the perfect shape and size of a choke for a given bore. After that, he developed tools to produce the choke bore profile correctly and smoothly. The system of choke boring that he pioneered was so successful that it was later adopted by other manufacturers and hence, some authorities give him the credit for inventing the concept.

In December 1874, the first mention of Greener's choke bore appeared in an article by J.H. Walsh, the Editor of Field magazine. The article mentioned the extraordinary shot pattern that the Greener shotgun could produce. The next issue came with an advertisement from W.W. Greener, stating that the firm would guarantee that their new guns would shoot a closer pattern than any other manufacturer. The advertisement claimed that Greener 12 bores were warranted to shoot an average pattern of 210, when the best 12 bore gun in the London Gun Trial of 1866 could only average 127. Naturally, the advertisement generated considerable controversy, especially from rival manufacturers of cylinder guns, who refused to believe the numbers quoted in the advertisement.

In order to resolve the controversy, the Editors of Field magazine decided to conduct a public trial in 1875. The London Trial of 1875 pitted choke bores and cylinder guns of various manufacturers in four categories—Class 1 (large bores, any boring), Class 2 (Choke bores, 12 gauge), Class 3 (Guns of English boring or Cylinders) and Class 4 (Small gauges, any boring). The choke bored guns performed better that the cylinder guns in all these tests, and W.W. Greener choke bore guns won the class 1, class 2 and class 4 categories. Greener Choke bores also won at the London Gun Trials of 1877 and 1879, and the Chicago Field Gun Trial of 1879. The results of these trials were responsible for making the W.W. Greener name famous.