Dear Bruce,

I’ve recently purchased a Browning Gran Lightning 12 ga. over/under with invector-plus choke system. I’m now starting to shoot a lot more and have considered adding 20-ga tubes such as Briley or Kolar.

My question is how well do these insert tubes really perform, and is there any possibility of long-term damage to my gun by using these tubes? How do the invector choke tubes perform with these tubes is another question. Thanks for your time.

-Bob

Dear Bob,

How well do Briley/Kolar skeet tubes work? Well enough, that’s for sure. Tube sets have dominated NSSA skeet competition for longer than I can remember. Absolutely everyone uses them.

I don’t quite know what you mean when you ask “how the invector choke tubes perform with these tubes”. The Invector chokes in your Browning barrels are covered by the tubes. Some of the tubes themselves are available with screw chokes (not Browning Invector brand) and the screw chokes in the tubes work as advertised. I have a set of Briley gauge tubes with screw chokes and they work perfectly.

Will gauge tubes hurt your gun? Not in the slightest. Actually, because they form a “barrel within a barrel” they will protect your barrel. The only problem arises when you leave the tubes in during storage and get rust between the tube and the barrel. Store your gun without the tubes in place.

Gauge tube sets do have one big drawback. They are HEAVY. Even the lightest tube set will add 1/2 pound to the front of your gun. The heavier ones will add an entire pound. This will totally and completely destroy any semblance of balance that your gun might have, especially since the Invector choked Japanese Brownings start out pretty muzzle heavy to begin with.

American-style skeet shooters win all sorts of championships with nose heavy guns and many have come to prefer that feel. In the field or in sporting clays, that kind of balance will just murder you. You will also note that there is an extreme difference between shooting the gun with the tubes in place and without. It will feel like a completely different gun. Whether or not you like the feel is up to you. Adding gauge tubes creates a new dimension for your gun, but it is no free lunch.

By the way, for what it is worth I prefer the Briley tube sets to the Kolars.

Best regards,

Bruce Buck
Shotgun Report’s Technoid
(Often in error, never in doubt.)