BPS and Carlson Choke Tubes

[viking499]

Brought my BPS 12 out of the closet the other day and thought I would make it my slug gun this year. The barrel has the invector plus chokes
Was trying to decide if I wanted to buy a dedicated rifled slug barrel to shoot sabots or a rifled choke tube and go the rifled slug route. I like the sabot idea except for the cost of the barrel and the cost of the slugs.

Got a new Carlson's catalog in the mail last night. While thumbing through looking at which tubes I was interested in, I came to the rifled choke tubes. The ad in a nutshell says: The tube protrudes past the barrel .625 to 1.3 inches from the end of the barrel depending on firearm. Right hand twist, which is 1 in 35. Lifetime warranty. Works with slugs, rifled slugs and sabots.

My questions are - Will a rifled slug choke stabilize a sabot slug with the short amount of rifling the choke tube has and give you good accuracy out to 100+ yards? I know a rifled barrel would probably be better, but they are $200 and up.

Has anyone had experience with these tubes? Is Carlson's a good brand/quality?

 

[Fred Fuller]

Would that it were possible to say definitively what any given barrel with any given choke tube would always do on any given shotgun with any given ammunition (whew!). Unfortunately it just ain't so. Shotgun barrels are unpredictable creatures at best.

That said, long ago something called Paradox guns were all the rage among explorers on the Dark Continent. You can see one of those for sale at http://www.micksguns.com/double rifles.htm - just scroll down to the bottom of the listing on that page. A Paradox gun was a smoothbore with a short section of the bore rifled at the muzzle. Sound familiar?

They worked then, to one degree or another. And they apparently still work , since H&H decided to start making them again.

=========================
http://www.hollandandholland.com/news_events/news/press_release/

Press Release

Holland & Holland re-introduce the Paradox gun after nearly 70 years.
What is a Paradox? Put simply, a Paradox is a combination gun that can fire both pellets like a shotgun and bullets like a rifle. (A paradox round is a slug rather than a true bullet).

The History. The intended quarry usually dictates the need of shotguns for feather, and rifles for fur. A 'shot-gun' discharges hundreds of pellets from a plain tube and though very effective, the lethal range remains limited by the tiny pellets. The accuracy of a bullet propelled through a rifled barrel is needed to bag larger four-legged quarry. So shotguns and rifles remained distinctly different. A true "shot & ball" gun capable of meeting all needs became the gunmakers' Holy Grail -- until 1885 when a Col. G.V. Fosbery solved the problem.

How does a Paradox work? Fosbery's solution was to rifle the choke, enabling either pellets or bullet to be fired though the same barrel with astonishing effect. Henry Holland snapped up the rights and most aptly named it the "Paradox". Capable of producing even shot patterns and repeatedly grouping heavyweight bullets well within a hand-span at 100 yards assured it was an immediate success, resulting in some 1500 guns being built over a 40-year period. Africa & India proved to be the ideal stage to demonstrate the Paradox's full potential and our records abound with tales of exiting sport in faraway lands.

So why have H & H decided to reintroduce the "Paradox" after nearly 70-years? The Empire is no more but throughout Europe and the USA changes in land usage have resulted in wild boar, deer - and Lyme disease - increasing to habitat and health-damaging levels leaving shooting as the only effective and humane means of control.

It is also ideal for use in areas where high-velocity rifles may be prohibited but where a potent short-range bullet is ideal. Weighing much the same the "Paradox" model is endowed with all the handling characteristics of a classic shotgun, making it ideal for quick snap shots in shrub or forest.

Result. If you anticipate that your day's hunting might include both feather and fur , you can carry two types of ammunition for two very different quarries, but need only carry one clever "Paradox" gun. Hunters who travel the world for their sport will appreciate the potential benefits of such a true dual-function gun.

Bullet weight: 12-bore = 740 grains / 48 gram
Bullet diameter: .735" (Fosbery Pattern, solid lead)
Muzzle velocity: *1050 ft./sec. / 320 m/sec.
Muzzle energy: *1840 ft./lbs. / 2500 joules
Service pressure: 3 ¼ tons " / 850 bar
Cartridge case: 12-bore 2 ½" / 65mm
1 leaf zeroed to p.o.a. @ 50 yards / (45-50m)
+ 2nd leaf to p.o.a. @ 100 yards / (90 - 100m)

*Note: At 100 yards the very heavy bullet retains over 90% of the velocity and 85% of the energy making the bullet truly deadly on even the largest soft-skinned game.
============================

As to Carlson's, they've been at the choke tube game a pretty good while and have made a name for themselves. See http://www.chuckhawks.com/carlsons_choke_tubes.htm for example, http://www.chuckhawks.com/scott_carlson.htm for more if you need it.

As to real answers- only rounds downrange will really tell you what your combination of gun/barrel/tube/ammo will do. If I could predict stuff like that, I'd be making a mint on Wall Street, not mucking about with shotguns 8^).

Good luck (and try a variety of slugs),

lpl/nc

 

[sm]

Lee,

Nailed it as always with his great post.

Carlson is a good company.

IME and Testing. Keeping in mind each barrel /choke is entity of itself:
I have actually gotten better results with a rifled choke tube over a rifled barrel.
My suggestion is always external knurled choke over internal chokes.

 

[viking499]

sm,

Was your better results with rifled slugs or sabots?

 

[sm]

Being honest,
I never warmed up to sabots personally.

Reasons are simple, where me and mine use slugs, we are not restricted to shotgun only areas, and some areas we hunt are that dense, meaning closer shots.
If we need greater distance, we are going to use a rifle.
I am going to use a 30-30 with 170 gr bullets personally.

I am not into "sky busting" or "taking the long shot", I am old school in using woodscraft skills to get closer to game to make a ethical kill.

Being honest again, I am not all that big of a proponent of using rifled slugs from rifled bores either.
It only a takes a few shots for the rifling to get clogged with lead, and accuracy diminishes fast.
Rifled barrel, means cleaning that whole barrel.
Choke, means cleaning the choke.

There is no holy grail on any of this stuff, and one has to consider their rules , regs, and environment as to guns and loads.

Some guns were better with sabots and some with rifled slugs, it just takes shooting to see what a set up likes.
My problem is, offerings can and do change, so a neat new offering works like a top, and then for whatever reason, that offering is changed and one's gun hates that loading.

Ammo mfg/ components mfg get caught up in mergers and acquisitions, buy metals on the market for less monies and the alloys differ, another plant gets the contract to cast, or reload...
I have seen this happen with just plain old shotgun shells using shot, we know this happens with the "slug" market.


Now I personally tested stuff for the sake of something to do, as I pattern pellet loads, and go from the regular working person viewpoint that is going to shoot.
I am not into anal retentive, or compulsive about it. I am not that smart, and not a ballistic person and math is not my strong point. I am not into marketing or selling, or trying to boost my ego.

Just a regular guy that likes shotguns, respects them, and appreciates a versatile tool one does not have to spend a lot of money on , to have a long gun to use for home defense , clays, hunting with pellets or slugs.

I don't mess with this like I used to, and times have brought about new things...and me being me...not everything new and fangled is really all that great, and often time is about taking money from wallets and not helping a shotgunner.

I personally use smoothbores with plain vanilla Forster slugs, the most, with Brenneke being the "good stuff" I sometimes use.
I prefer fixed choked guns.

I will share:

-Old barrels with meat with fixed chokes did better than newer barrels with less meat. My guess is harmonics plays a part.

-Ithaca Deerslayer barrels were darn sure named correctly, as those old barrels were designed with bore diameters that flat knew how to work with factory slugs.

-Winchester barrels the old ones , again, they flat designed barrels, from chamber , to forcing cone, bore dia, to that Win-Choke - right!

-H&R Topper and NEF know something about barrels too.

-Nu_Line external knurled chokes on Win guns, work real well together.

-There is a phenomenon with shotgun barrels being 19", 21", 23" and 25".
I discovered this in pellet loads, and I'll be darned if some guns that we had, with busted barrels, with meat, and qual'd gunsmith did the threads, did not show the same results. One was a 19" 1300 barrel re-cut to use factory Win-Choke. That gun was flat scary accurate!

-Round Ball Slugs, will surprise folks.
I wish I had gotten into Black powder,and I need to some day learn.
Still, growing up Mentors made /used round ball slugs , reloaded them, and used out of fixed choked smoothbore shotguns , in all 4 gauges, and these flat worked.
I ever get time and money, I want to mess with round ball slugs more, and view from a BP angle.
[All my notebooks and everything Mentors left me, burned up, and I'd rather have the mentors back, to share with me all of this again]

I am not really the one to ask, I am not that smart.
I do caution folks to not get wrapped around the axle, and get too anal retentive, or compulsive, and get too into marketing.

Here is one article, interesting, still just read it for what it is...
http://www.nrapublications.org/tah/Slugs.asp


Again, some of us have found some loadings are not being made as they once were. We have made calls and checked. Contracts were filled and the next person that gets the contract fills order to specs, still it seems some specs change, and is that due to factors we are not aware of, or something else?

I am staying with smooth bores and Forster slugs for my needs. I have some old Brennke's put back.

I guess if I was in a shotgun restricted zone, or actually deer hunted like I used to , I would put more effort into all this...

Art & Science is still fun to me though.