Fred Fuller
Moderator Emeritus
It's been said, over and over and over again. You can't predict how a shotgun barrel will shoot based on what it's _supposed_ to do, or what's in the advertising or the specifications or the owner's manual, or even what's stamped into the barrel/onto the choke tube. You can only pattern it and see what it actually does, with different loads and distances and chokes. And if you take one out without having found out for yourself what it will actually do- well, you might be asking for some unpleasant surprises. Sometimes you get pleasant surprises, of course, but you can't count on it.
Every shotgun barrel is a law unto itself. It doesn't matter if it's supposed to be made exactly the same way of the same materials on the same equipment as the one that came off the line just before it or just after it. They are all different, even in this day of precision CNC production lines. And you still can't take anything for granted. Or at least, if you are smart you won't.
A while back I wrote about the most recent evolution of a favorite 870. This time around it got a nice new set of walnut furniture and a 18" RS IC-choked police gun barrel. And the experiments started.
First I sighted it in with slugs. No problemo at all, it absolutely loved the Brenneke KOs that I favor (they work and they are cheep). First round at 25 yards with the newly replaced tritium element sights went right into point of aim and then it was cloverleafs from there on. Same same at 50 yards, where I moved the rear sight up a bit to get the slugs a bit higher to compensate for drop further out.
Then the frustration started. This barrel DOES NOT like buckshot, from everything I can tell so far. It's now been shot with everything I have in the MISC BUCKSHOT- labeled ammo cans, from #4 up to 000 and from S&B to brass case headed Federal Premium. This is in sooth a scattergun barrel. It flings lead everywhere. All over the where. AND it leaves a nice clear spot in the middle of almost every pattern.
I wound up going through all the stuff I had trying to find a load it would pattern. I just KNEW what was going to happen, as I went through load after load- it was going to light on some obscure out-of-production load that I had exactly seven rounds of total left to my name and no way to get any more, and it was going to pattern that like a champ. And there I'd be, stuck with no way to replenish the supply of the only ammo it liked.
I shouldn't have worried.
It was absolutely consistent in throwing terrible patterns with all the buckshot I fed it. This afternoon I wound up my experiments, using a 17X19" cardboard box placed at the 25 yard line to check results. Overall it seems to like big pellets better, with 000 its preference. It will at least keep all the 000 pellets on the box in most loads. Even my treasured old style Estate Low Recoil 00 loads failed in this barrel- there would be four or five pellets clustered near point of aim, and the rest scattered all over the cardboard- or the berm.
Fortunately for me there are still some newer low recoil loads I haven't bought yet, so I do have some options left for testing. And even if they all fail, there's still 'Red' Lyles at Colonial Arms with his magic lathes and reamers and gauges, so all is not totally lost- perhaps.
But I am used to ImpCyl barrels doing better than that, they should keep patterns inside the box and even with SOME size of buckshot. And barrels that have been worked over, the way I had worked out back when I was doing a lot of experimenting, should do a LOT better. This tube was tossing lead all over two zip codes. I am simply not accustomed to such things. Most loads I tested strayed pellets off the box, even some of the more preferred 000 loads, even though the box measured almost twenty inches square.
I was so discouraged when I got done this afternoon that I went and dug out the 20" RS barrel that Ol' #62 had started out its second incarnation wearing, and remounted it. This barrel had the full treatment at Colonial, it had its forcing cone extended, its bore highly polished and a MOD RemChoke tube installed.
I took the gun back out, taped all the holes from the last test, and loaded one more carefully hoarded round of won't-be-no-more old style Estate 00 at the 25 yard line. I held on the same point of aim in the middle of the box as always before and squeeeezed it off. There was a satisfying THWACK from down range as the pellets impacted. No dust flew from odd places on the berm. I left the slide back on the empty gun and went to retrieve the box.
In the almost unmarred space in the middle of the box was a slightly oval pattern of nine 00 sized holes, measuring 6x4 1/2 inches to the outside.
Every shotgun barrel is a law unto itself...
lpl/nc
Every shotgun barrel is a law unto itself. It doesn't matter if it's supposed to be made exactly the same way of the same materials on the same equipment as the one that came off the line just before it or just after it. They are all different, even in this day of precision CNC production lines. And you still can't take anything for granted. Or at least, if you are smart you won't.
A while back I wrote about the most recent evolution of a favorite 870. This time around it got a nice new set of walnut furniture and a 18" RS IC-choked police gun barrel. And the experiments started.
First I sighted it in with slugs. No problemo at all, it absolutely loved the Brenneke KOs that I favor (they work and they are cheep). First round at 25 yards with the newly replaced tritium element sights went right into point of aim and then it was cloverleafs from there on. Same same at 50 yards, where I moved the rear sight up a bit to get the slugs a bit higher to compensate for drop further out.
Then the frustration started. This barrel DOES NOT like buckshot, from everything I can tell so far. It's now been shot with everything I have in the MISC BUCKSHOT- labeled ammo cans, from #4 up to 000 and from S&B to brass case headed Federal Premium. This is in sooth a scattergun barrel. It flings lead everywhere. All over the where. AND it leaves a nice clear spot in the middle of almost every pattern.
I wound up going through all the stuff I had trying to find a load it would pattern. I just KNEW what was going to happen, as I went through load after load- it was going to light on some obscure out-of-production load that I had exactly seven rounds of total left to my name and no way to get any more, and it was going to pattern that like a champ. And there I'd be, stuck with no way to replenish the supply of the only ammo it liked.
I shouldn't have worried.
It was absolutely consistent in throwing terrible patterns with all the buckshot I fed it. This afternoon I wound up my experiments, using a 17X19" cardboard box placed at the 25 yard line to check results. Overall it seems to like big pellets better, with 000 its preference. It will at least keep all the 000 pellets on the box in most loads. Even my treasured old style Estate Low Recoil 00 loads failed in this barrel- there would be four or five pellets clustered near point of aim, and the rest scattered all over the cardboard- or the berm.
Fortunately for me there are still some newer low recoil loads I haven't bought yet, so I do have some options left for testing. And even if they all fail, there's still 'Red' Lyles at Colonial Arms with his magic lathes and reamers and gauges, so all is not totally lost- perhaps.
But I am used to ImpCyl barrels doing better than that, they should keep patterns inside the box and even with SOME size of buckshot. And barrels that have been worked over, the way I had worked out back when I was doing a lot of experimenting, should do a LOT better. This tube was tossing lead all over two zip codes. I am simply not accustomed to such things. Most loads I tested strayed pellets off the box, even some of the more preferred 000 loads, even though the box measured almost twenty inches square.
I was so discouraged when I got done this afternoon that I went and dug out the 20" RS barrel that Ol' #62 had started out its second incarnation wearing, and remounted it. This barrel had the full treatment at Colonial, it had its forcing cone extended, its bore highly polished and a MOD RemChoke tube installed.
I took the gun back out, taped all the holes from the last test, and loaded one more carefully hoarded round of won't-be-no-more old style Estate 00 at the 25 yard line. I held on the same point of aim in the middle of the box as always before and squeeeezed it off. There was a satisfying THWACK from down range as the pellets impacted. No dust flew from odd places on the berm. I left the slide back on the empty gun and went to retrieve the box.
In the almost unmarred space in the middle of the box was a slightly oval pattern of nine 00 sized holes, measuring 6x4 1/2 inches to the outside.
Every shotgun barrel is a law unto itself...
lpl/nc
