Shotgun choke was a wonderful thing when it came along reportedly in 1866. According to patents, that's the year in which American Fred Kimble and a Brit named Pape of Newcastle, England, developed shotgun choke boring in their respective countries. Prior to then, all shotguns were probably the equivalent of cylinder bore, and consequently shot wide patterns.

Choke opened up a whole new world of shotgunning by allowing the shooter to have either a wide or narrow pattern, or anything in between, to match their shooting conditions. For example, high-flying geese are better taken on with a tighter patterning choke, while powdering a clay pigeon on the skeet field is easier with a wider pattern.

The TruGlo Titan is a collet-type of adjustable choke with eight splines that are either squeezed closer together or allowed to spread apart by tightening or loosening an external collar.

If there was a fault about choke in early guns, it was that you were stuck with the choke your gun had. That situation changed at least as early as the 1950s when several variable chokes came on the market. Variable chokes allowed a shooter to instantly dial the device to the desired choke constriction. Changing choke as such resulted in a wide pattern for close in shooting, or a tight pattern for long range work making shotguns even more versatile than they are inherently.

Adjustable chokes have been around since at least the 1950s when companies such as Poly-Choke offered them as options a gunsmith could permanently install on a shotgun.

Of the variable chokes, the most recognizable is, of course, the Poly-Choke that was followed by others including the Dyna-Magic and Emsco Choke. Problems with those chokes included that they had to be permanently attached by a gunsmith. If the choke was installed eccentric, then the gunsmith may have to bend the barrel to correct point of impact. Another fault was that the devices added a considerable amount of weight at the muzzle, which upset the balance of a shotgun. To some shooters, the bulbous apparatus at the muzzle spoiled the lines of otherwise sleek shotguns, and was distracting when shooting. Because attachment was permanent, the only solution to an ugly choke was to cut it off, making the barrel obviously shorter, but also without any choke.

Despite the faults in the execution of variable chokes, they worked. They even lead to so-called "automatic" chokes such as the Poly-Matic and Adjustomatic, which automatically tightened the choke for successive shots as the charge passed through them. These suffered the same problems as adjustable chokes, and made hitting incoming birds harder.