Using ported barrels for competitions

Can you use ported barrels and chokes for competitions? Our expert Don Brunt answers the question…

Q: I have been told I cannot use my gun in competitions because it has ported barrels. Can you tell me why? Also, can you use ported chokes in competition?

DON BRUNT replies: Simply put, yes and yes… Ported barrels/chokes have been allowed for the domestic disciplines of Skeet, Sporting and Sportrap, DTL and ABT, though barrel porting is something of a rarity these days and has never caught on here in the way that it did in America. Up until 2014/15 ‘ventilated barrel attachments’, i.e. ported or ‘wad stripping’ chokes, were not allowed to be used for DTL (and its subsidiary disciplines) and ABT, but they are now legal.

If you wish to shoot any of the ISSF disciplines (Olympic Skeet, Double Trap, Olympic Trap), then the rules regarding barrels and chokes are as follows:

9.4.- 2.7: Ported Barrels and Ported Interchangeable Chokes

a) Ported barrels are permitted, provided they do not extend back further than 20cm as measured from the end of the muzzle; and

b) Ported interchangeable chokes are permitted, provided their porting plus any barrel porting does not exceed 20cm as measured from the muzzle end of the interchangeable fitted choke.

The FITASC rule book doesn’t even mention ported barrels or chokes so there is no restriction on their use in any way.