Trulock Makes Affordable Bespoke Chokes for Collegiate Competitors
The four lanes of U.S. Route 84 cut through rural South Georgia. You’ll pass churches, body shops, gas stations, convenience stores, tired farm houses, old double-wides, acres of agriculture, Dollar General, skirt the downtown Cairo (home of the Syrupmakers high-school football team), before reaching Broad Avenue and the town limits of Whigham – population 428 as of the 2020 census. Having driven through the town several times over the years on my way to someplace else, and with Whigham’s total area of 1.2 miles overshadowed by a few blocks of derelict storefronts, you’d think it would be pretty easy to find a business that is still in operation.
The Whigham, Georgia city hall.
But taking a quick right onto Drayton Street NW, looking for Trulock Chokes at number 113, you’ll wonder if once again the GPS was confused when it announces “You have arrived at your destination.” Because the only things you’ll see on the quiet side street with grass shoulders are a few non-descript modular buildings neighboring a collection of small silos and corrugated steel structures. So I keep driving around the block, and if I have actually arrived at my destination I’m sure not seeing it. I’m back in front of the buildings when a woman steps outside of one and I ask her through the window “Is this Trulock Chokes? I’m looking for Scott Trulock.”
A few of the Trulock buildings in Whigham, Georgia.
Friendly as pie she answers, “Oh, Scott’s in that building right there. I’ll show you.”
I had driven 35 minutes from Shotgun Life’s office in Thomasville, Georgia to follow-up on a lead about a little-known choke.
My search actually started several weeks before at The Ranges at Oakfield in Thomasville. Shooting 5-stand on a Saturday morning, the usual crew was in action. After a round, a guy I only knew as Bob had set his Blaser F3 in the rack and I noticed it had brushed-silver extended chokes imprinted with C3.
Trulock Chokes’ C3 custom-made collegiate chokes.
“I never saw those chokes before,” I told him.
“They’re Trulocks.”
“What’s C3?”
Bob explained that they are custom-fitted chokes made for collegiate shooters.
“But you’re not in college.”
His wry smile revealed the subterfuge. I would discover later, after meeting Scott Trulock, that Bob had fibbed his way into those chokes.
Scott Trulock on the factory floor of Trulock Chokes.
Scott is leaning back in the office chair behind the same desk occupied by his late father, George, who started the company in Whigham in 1981. Trulock has been manufacturing chokes continuously since 1982. In fact, by all appearances in the tiny machine-shop office, nothing has really changed since: the wood paneling, the beat-up desk, the cluttered bookcase, even the smell of oil from the small factory humming on the other side of the wall.
Scott wears a ball cap, gray Trulock t-shirt, jeans and work boots. He’s tall and lanky, his build still carrying the stature of an ex-Marine. Scott has been working off and on at Trulock since boyhood. After his military discharge, he worked in the communications industry out of Tallahassee, Florida for a while before returning full time to the company in 2004. After George passed in June 2022 at age 69, Scott became CEO, although in all practicality he seems to co-manage the company with his brother, Jerrod. In addition to making Trulock chokes for just about every brand of shotgun, the company private labels chokes for prominent shotgun companies. Trulock also has a contract with Taurus USA in nearby Bainbridge, Georgia to manufacture and assemble some handgun components.
Scott Trulock with the original lathe used by his late father when starting their choke-making business.
Scott is affable, a guy who is comfortable in his own skin. Naturally, I was curious why there were no signs on the buildings. “Never got around to putting them up,” he says of their five buildings in the immediate vicinity. Turns out, I was in the main production facility of 4,500 square feet replete with lathes, vertical machine centers and ancillary equipment, including the first lathe his father ever used to make chokes. Business is good, because the factory floor is cramped.
Our conversation turns to the mysterious C3 chokes, and we circle back to the Ranges at Oakfield. A friend’s son, who shoots clay competitively with a Kolar, had asked Scott if Trulock could make custom chokes for the shotgun.
In the process of discussing those Kolar chokes, the Trulock brothers started talking about making a new line of chokes exclusively for collegiate clays competitors and calling it C3 (Collegiate Custom Choke). They knew how much money parents spend on their kids to compete on the collegiate circuit, so the C3 chokes would be more affordable than other custom chokes – let’s say $75.00 each versus about $150 from other choke makers.
The Trulock Chokes main manufacturing facility.
“It can be expensive for families to support young shooters, that’s why we’re doing this,” he said. “We’re about half of what someone else might charge to make a custom choke.”
I asked Scott how Bob, in his 70s, managed to get those C3 chokes. Scott nodded knowingly and said “we take people at their word that they participate in scholastic programs.”
At its core business, Trulock’s off-the-shelf offerings adhere to industry standards of Skeet 1 .005 inches, Improved Cylinder .010, Modified .020 inches, Improved Modified .025 inches and Full .030 inches – regardless of the shotgun’s inner bore diameter.
As Trulock explains it: “A choke is simply a tapered constriction of the gun barrel’s bore at the muzzle end. The exit end of the choke is smaller by some dimension than the actual bore of the barrel. This difference is the amount of constriction. For example if the bore of the barrel is .730 and the exit diameter of the choke is .710 you have a constriction of .020. The amount of constriction for a given degree of choke will also vary between manufacturers. As a general rule for standard chokes the total range will be between .000 and .045 thousandths of an inch under bore diameter.”
With bespoke C3 chokes, the gun owner either sends their barrels to Trulock, brings them in (believe your GPS) or has an expert gunsmith measure the inner diameter of the barrels. Trulock precisely machines the C3 chokes to those tolerances for superior patterns and shot distribution at the target.
Scott Trulock shows the raw stock on the left used to make their chokes.
“Our C3 chokes are true to the bore, and that’s what you get when you have machines programmable to different diameters,” Scott said.
As part of the C3 finishing process, the chokes are hand polished “to make the inner bore as smooth as we can make them.”
Trulock currently sponsors several collegiate clays-shooting teams including the Brookwood School, Florida State University and the Eastern Kentucky University.
“We’re looking to add more schools,” Scott said.
Irwin Greenstein is the Publisher of Shotgun Life. You can reach him on the Shotgun Life Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/shotgunlife
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Irwin Greenstein is Publisher of Shotgun Life. Please send your comments to letters@shotgunlife.com.
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