Until recently, everyone thought that shotgun chokes "work" by funneling down metal shot pellets from a bore-size wad into a smaller stream under pressure, like a garden hose does with water. It was not really understood why the spread of pellets from a shotshell could be concentrated at a distance onto a target. Of course, the more shot that can be made to hit the target instantly, the greater the killing power.

It is true that pattern targets don't lie. Funnel chokes seem to do a pretty good job on them. But they don't tell you the whole truth, either.