Confused

[BCPerry]

I have always been told that slugs would only go through a rifled barrel. I have just read in another thread where people were discussing the type of choke a guy had in his shotgun. The conversations were leaning toward not mattering what choke he had in, that he could shoot a slug through all of them.

It's always been my understanding that any type of choke would cause the slug to bind up at the end of the barrel and then eplode the end of the barrel.

Why am I apparently wrong? How does a slug go through an improved cylinder? Is the slug really that narrow to fit through with no problems?

 

[Fred Fuller]

'Rifled' slugs have projections off the main body of the slug that allow it to be compressed to some degree by choke constrictions. Some people insist these "fins" are there to make the slug spin in flight, but their main purpose is to allow the slug to pass through chokes, if present.

It's always been my understanding that any type of choke would cause the slug to bind up at the end of the barrel and then eplode the end of the barrel.

If this were true there would be an awful lot of banana-peeled smoothbore shotgun barrels out there, and several of them would belong to me .

How does a slug go through an improved cylinder? Is the slug really that narrow to fit through with no problems?

1) Buy a box of rifled slugs

2) Take your pocket knife and carefully cut one open so you can extract the unfired slug

3) Get a dial/digital caliper or similar measuring device, and measure both the outside diameter of the slug and the inside diameter of your shotgun bore at the muzzle

4) Keep in mind that steel is harder/stronger than lead, even hard lead alloys like those in Brenneke slugs, and that lead slugs of the proper gauge will swage down as necessary to fit through shotgun bores and chokes of the same gauge.

I don't like shooting slugs through choke tubes any tighter than Mod, or through fixed chokes any tighter than Mod either, but so far I haven't sent ether a Mod choke tube or the end of a tightly choked barrel howling downrange. But my choke tubes are either factory installations, or quality professional installations, I keep my choke tubes tight and properly lubricated, and generally keep fairly open tubes in place in barrels where I'm likely to be shooting slugs. I'm told I worry too much, even so... .

hth,

lpl