Gunslinger Forums.com

On Friday, at WalMart, I bought a shotgun choke tube carrier. It looked pretty much like this one, except the one I got is black:

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templ ... hasJS=true

Thing is, none of my shotguns have removeable choke tubes. Not a single one of them. So, why the heck would I want a choke tube carrier when I have no choke tubes to carry? Well, my friends, read on to become privy to my evil plan.

I recently made a spare cylinder carrier and an ammo pouch for my HRR out of a well-worn leather shoe (I'll post pics, eventually - haven't gotten around to taking any, yet and my lower back is bugging me too much to fool with gathering everything up and taking pics, right now.) The cylinder pouch came out a little snug but it will work. The ammo pouch will be great for keeping a good supply of .22LR at hand for use when target shooting/plinking. However, I started thinking (sometimes dangerous)...

What if one wanted to take their .22 combo HRR with them when walking around the woods, etc. and wanted to have a variety of ammo within reach, easily accessible while remaining sorted and seperated? What if one wanted to make sure that said ammo wasn't going to spill out the top of a pouch and wanted it to be at least somewhat protected from atmospheric moisture? I thought about making a long pouch out of leather or even water-resistant canvas backed with leather and then subdividing it into two or three seperate pouches with a seperate covering flap to snap down over each of them. However, that still wasn't going to get me the variety of ammo I desired. Then I started thinking about the choke tube case and bought one to try out. My preliminary thoughts are that, as I have prepared it, this is going to work nicely.

By carefully layering ammo into the plastic tubes that come with the carrier, I found that I can fit 30 .22LR rounds into one tube and still be able to fully insert the plastic lid/stopper. Using that same method of carefully putting the ammo in, I can fit 18 .22 Magnum rounds into one tube. As such, I filled two tubes with Federal bulk-pack .22LR ammo (partly for the rough rider but partly in case I am carrying the .22LR rifle, too), two tubes with Winchester Super X 40 grain .22 Mag JHP, one tube with Fiocchi 40 Grain .22 Mag JSP and one tube with Winchester Supreme 34 grain .22 Mag JHP. I used a fine Sharpie marker to label the lid of each tube as to what ammo that tube contained. This means that all I have to do is fully unzip and open the carrier, look down at the top of the tubes and choose the tube that contains the ammo I want. There is also a smaller, zippered compartment on the front of the carrier. I found that one of the old, squarish plastic boxes I have that used to hold .22LR ammo fits nicely into that compartment (this plastic box held Remington ammo and is more square and flatter than, say, CCI packages.) With the little, flat plastic piece that had holes to hold the individual rounds removed, this plastic, slide-top box can hold a couple of small, cardboard boxes of the size that .22 shorts come in. Therefore, I put one box of Winchester .22 shorts in there. I also used an old, empty .22 short box to hold 10 CCI Maxi-Mag FMJ rounds and a couple of .22 Mag and .22LR shotshells. All told, in this handy-sized belt case, I have:

60 rounds of .22LR JHP
2 rounds of .22LR shotshell
84 rounds of .22 Mag ammo (10 FMJ, 32 Super X JHP, 18 Fiocchi JSP, 18 Win. Supreme JHP and 2 CCI shotshells)
50 rounds of .22 Short

for a grand total of 196 rounds. Plenty of ammo right at hand (although if I eventually get a .22 Mag rifle I'll be switching one of the .22LR tubes over to hold more .22 Mag ammo), nice variety and not terribly heavy all in a neat, convenient package.

That's a good idea JAB.

I just bought 2 of those myself. But mine are for mine and my wifes shotty's. Another user here made use of the tool puches you get with your Mosins. I believe he even has some extra for sale in the TP. ;)

I was actually looking at the dual ammo pouch that came with my Mosin for ideas when I was thinking about making a double or triple belt pouch. I think I am going to like this even better, though.

That is a great idea! Thanks for sharing it. I love my ammo pouch when I'm at the range or just using .22lrs, but the choke tube carrier is perfect for my camping pack.

Would a 10 pocket cartridge belt work? The old garand and 03 type.

I could see it. It all depends on what's best for you.