Talk me off the ledge. Rem 572 smoothbore "garden gun" .22 shotgun

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

I use an old Winchester ,22 mag pump with CCI #11 shotshells alot off my deck. It rolls rats and ground squirrels to 40 feet no problem. Of course somebody bored out a foot of the barrel to 5/16" for 6 inches then 6" of 3/8" . It throws 14" patterns at 30" that are not donuts. >22 mag rifles with shot are less than half as loud as a .410 BTW>
I use .22lr shot in my 2" S&W kit gun for rats I see while I'm feeding chickens ect. Works to about 20 feet on rats.

Now that's good information - what I was looking for. Hmmm, maybe the ticket is to find a rusty old .22 magnum for dirt cheap, then just have a machine shop run a drill press down the barrel a ways like you describe, opening it up and smoothing it out.

 

[JNewell]

JNewell, sounds good - But could you explain those three? I thought a CZ/Springfield M6 has a rifled .22 bbl? You must mean the .410.... What's a Camper? Oh, the 9410 - that's the Winchester lever .410 right? Forgot about that one - ha, those are cool!

Yes, was referring to the bottom tube on the M6. The Camper is the Savage .22LR/20ga "Camper" model with shorter barrels. Great article here: http://www.beartoothbullets.com/tech_notes/archive_tech_notes.htm/1

 

[Gordon]

Yeah before I found this weird Win Mag pump I looked for years for a Marlin 25G garden gun. The .22lr Rutledge(bored out) smooth bores rifles don't work well over about 30 feet. The Magnum with the #11 shot works out to about 50 feet max on rodents. Both are very quiet.
I would like a good 9mm Garden gun too, I've heard them fired and they are much louder than a .22mag rifle with shot but a lot less than a .410 which cracks as well as a 20 gauge IMHO.

 

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

Think I found a solution which is just as good, and a lot cheaper. Look:

http://www.mcace.com/adapters.htm

They have adapters in which you can shoot .22lr, .22mag, and other rounds, in various larger chambers, and specifically, they have two chamber adapters for .22lr shotshells - for the .45 colt and .410 shot. Think I'll get the .410 one and try it out.

 

[Loomis]

That would probably only be good for small, slow moving vermin that you can get close enough to to hit them with a slingshot.

rats
snakes
feral cats
voles
That's about it.