J. Stevens Arms and Tool Co or Crescent Fire Arms for the George Worthington hardware stores.
Depends on what it is choked.
Yes chokes are designed to tighten shot patterns.
You can use a sabot in any shotgun, as long as the barrel is not choked. If you have screw in chokes, you will want to use ONLY the Cylinder or CYL choke. Otherwise, you will need to look on the barrel to see what it is choked in. If you do not have screw chokes, unless it says CYLINDER or SLUG, it is probably choked. (It may say Improved, IM, Modified, Full, etc)
both barrels are not choked
Depends on what it is choked.
Yes. Accuracy may be better in an IC choked barrel, but they are safe to shoot.
IIRC, full.
Your Model 1897 Shotgun was made in 1912. MOD refers to it being choked modified vs full, cylinder, skeet, etc..
If it is not choked to tight, yes.
Depends on what it is choked and what load you want to shoot.
50-100 usd
It is possible to fire a shotgun without a choke, but it is highly not reccomended, and they don't cost that much If you select a barrel with no choke (cylinder) it will cause the pattern to be looser than for a barrel of a shotgun that has a tighter choke. The extreme is "full choke" which keeps a tight pattern out to the effective range. Full choke is typically used for waterfowl. A shotgun that is pressed into double duty (shot for small game and slugs for big game) would work well to have modified choke. Slugs have to be designed to fire through a full choke without blowing the barrel but you will certainly shorten the life of the barrel by firing slugs through a choked barrel. If you can afford an extra barrel, then use a cylinder (no choke) for slugs. Remington and other shotgun manufacturers have interchangeable choke tubes (see link) that allow you to screw in the appropriate choke for your quarry.