A Stupid Question About Rifled Shotguns

[Cosmoline]

OK, I'm out of my depth when it comes to rifled shotgun barrels. I once owned a Mossberg 500A with a 18 1/2 barrel, smooth bore, and used it for a lot of rifled slugs with great effect. I'm looking at getting another Mossberg but I'm finding a lot of RIFLED barrels on them. Can I use rifled slugs with thes, or just sabot slugs? What would accuracy be like using rifled slugs in a rifled barrel?

 

[kudu]

They are generally the most accurate with a sabot type slug, but they wil be more accurate than smoothbores if you use a rifled forstner slug.

 

[willeo6709]

rifled barrels

I live in Iowa, where the shotgun is the legal weapon for deer hunting. The answers to your questions get confusing.
1. Yes you can shoot foster rifled slugs through a rifled bore shotgun tube. lead fouling will eventually occur but at what point it starts affecting accuracy is not fully known. Fosters should be more accurate from a rifled tube than a smoothbore tube. How much more accurate depends on the shooter, the load, and the current accuracy.
2. Saboted loads are generally considered the most accurate out of rifled barrels, but I think its more a thing of reduced projectile weight and increased velocity that keeps it supersonic longer to achsive it. In other words in the first 25 yards you will see no difference in accuracy, only point of impact switching between fosters and sabots.
3. The biggest advantage to shooting sabots is spending less time with lead solvent after the shooting is done.
I am far from an expert but I have shot my share of slugs. I look forward to seeing how bad I get flamed.......

 

[Onmilo]

No flame here.
I use Winchester Partition Gold slugs in my 695 Mossberg full rifled slug gun but the Wolf lead slugs shoot suprisingly well in it too.
Plastic sabot fouling is as big an issue as lead fouling and the bore must be kept clean for repeatable accuracy, clean the gun every time you shoot it no matter what kind of slug you shoot.

 

[Spinner]

OK, here's a genuinely stoopid question about a rifled shotgun.

How come a shotgun with a rifled barrel shooting slugs is a shotgun and not a .72 calibre rifle?

rifled barrel .... check
single projectile .... check
long arm designed to be shoulder mounted .... check

What am I missing here?

Spinner

 

[Third_Rail]

The "sporting use" exception in the GCA.

 

[willeo6709]

My guess is that the anti gunners don't see shotguns as hi tech or even as much as a threat. Anything that will print a 3 inch circle at 100 yards is as good as most main battle rifles with open sights. a 1911 .45 was designed to shoot a 5 inch group at 50 yards. I think its more into the definition of the ammo ... if it shoots what looks like a shotgun shell then it must eb a shotgun. The same as most states define pistols for deer hunting as having a straight wall non belted case........

 

[mete]

The "rifling" on rifled slugs have nothing to to with spinning the slug for accuracy.It is there so that they can be used with any choke without damaging the choke.

 

[Third_Rail]

willeo6709, off topic a bit but in my experience antis see shotguns as the most dangerous firearm around.

 

[redneck2]

For hunting situations, do yourself a favor and try the sabots. I know they're expensive, but unless you're doing "shotgun games" for 3-gun or practicing for HD, you're not gonna burn up that many

I've shot all kinds of slugs for over 40 years. If you get the right rifled barrel/sabot combination it's almost unbelievable

Two years ago I hit a moving coyote at 140 yards. At 125 I can hold tennis ball sized groups with my 870 and 3" copper solids. The damage a sabot can do at those velocities has to be seen to be believed.

here the shots at deer can be anywhere from a few yards in the brush to the other end of a corn field. I like the extra range. 150 yard shot under the right conditions would be plenty acceptable. I use a 2x7 scope to get the full potential