the creaton of a internet myth

[randyt]

I reckon most won't touch this with a ten foot pole. The last year I've been hearing about how it is dangerous to shoot slugs in a full choke shotgun. I believe this to be a internet myth.

I started googling and searching for info, for example on a box of remington slugs it says and I quote..." rifled slugs may be fired through any choke". It also says do not shoot through a gun with damascus or twist barrels. I came across post from folks claiming a slug shot through a full choke barrel would peel it back like a banana peel. I came across post with a guy shooting slugs through a extra full choke, no problems. I've shot slugs through my 97 winchester full choke gun , no problems. I have never seen a shotgun barrel destroyed by a slug. I've asked for photos but no one can come up with any. All I get is a "I've seen them". I've seen photos of barrels destroyed because of a wad of mud or some such got lodged into it and a shot was fired through it. I cannot count the number of slugs I've shot through my full choke .410.

This all started with a pm from a internet friend. We we talking about what to use for a deer gun. He has a cut down shot gun that didn't group very well. He has a .410. I mentioned if he was close enough and the .410 grouped well enough use some .410 slugs. He responded it would blow the barrel up because it is full choke. This is the first time I heard of this. I grew up in a gun culture family and have never heard this before. I'm beginning to think the internet has dumbed down folks.

I'll keep searching, I have a lot of historical references to pull from. From what I can tell so far regarding slugs and full chokes it all started with the internet.

[hunter63]

I have heard this as well......and does seem to be a creation of the internet.
Never seen or heard or a exploded barrel either other than the "my BIL's, hair dressers uncle, had seen one in 1943"
If this was a problem...with all the vid and pic's....how come no one post them.

Damascus twist barrels....have just avoided them.... as I did have MF tell me, don't use modern ammo in them.
No reference other than that.
The statement from Remington:
Quote>....for example on a box of remington slugs it says and I quote..." rifled slugs may be fired through any choke". It also says do not shoot through a gun with damascus or twist barrel....<Quote
That would be good enough for me....

The massive amount of information from unknown sources on the interwebs....everyone is an expert....or wants to sound like one????

Personnel experience...?
I shot slug thru the of JC Higgins Mod 66 (Rem 1100 knock off).....Full choke...no problems?

I shot "foster slugs" with lead rifling on them...that are suppose to spin the slug......
Also have shot "Pumpkin balls" and are lead as well..?

Possible problem??? Maybe with plastic covered sabots?...maybe don't squish as much?....don't know....don't use them except in the H&R 20ga rifled bull barrel...(actually fosters shoot better)

Would I shoot slugs thru a full choke ....yes, if I had to....just happened to have plenty of options,... so don't need to.

[kyratshooter]

I still think you need to get that shotgun away from that guy and test it from a shooting bench! I think the accuracy problem is operator error. 9 times out of 10 it is.

What I have found agrees with you Randy, and I often find myself a voice of logic crying out in the wilderness. And people don't believe you because they have done no testing. Why would they, since they are certain their shotgun will turn into a bomb if they do!

I have tested the performances of various shotguns with different stages of choke for years, decades actually. Every time I buy a shotgun it gets tested for pattern with shot and for group with slugs. I have never blown one up shooting slugs and I have even found that many of my most accurate slug shooters had modified or full chokes.

One of the most accurate slug shooters I ever owned was an old Browning A5 with a 30" barrel and full choke, and Brownings are famous for the severe constrictions of their full choke.

I have seen my share of blown barrels and blown guns, but most were blown through shooter error, not slugs or design flaws. I have seen several 12 gauges blown when a 20 gauge shell blocked the barrel ahead of the chamber. I have also seen 12 gauge guns survive the same treatment with the barrel only being ballooned or ringed.

I have seen mud plugged muzzles split, but not as dramatically as most of the staged pictures in magazines and on the internet have shown. Often they simply split in a single fracture for about 6" before the obstruction.

The most dramatic blow ups I have seen were the muzzle loading guns that were reloaded using the contents of a smokeless powder shotgun shell. That will blow a ML gun almost every time, and it blows from back to front, usually hurting someone in the process. (At that point the moron generally stated that they will never touch a ML gun again! Their stupidity could not possibly be the cause of the incident!)

The only thing I hesitate to shoot slugs from are the shotguns I have equipped with Polychoke devices. Guns so equipped are a rarity today, the interchangeable screw in choke tubes being so popular and I must say more pleasant to look at in the gun rack. I am not afraid of b lowing up the gun, just damaging the very expensive choke device.

I must say that if a shotgun were to blow up when firing a slug it would most likely be when using a screw in rifled choke tube. And they are designed for use with slugs! The slug rockets down the .73 caliber bore at 1500-1600fps, then hits a 3" long section of steel tube with deep cut rifling of only .65 caliber and the gear like spines of rifling grab the slug at high speed and give it a left hand spin that is so severe that a strap wrench is required to remove the choke tube after shooting.

Yep, I have a couple of those too. Never blew a gun up with them either.

As for You-tube??? That seems a direct contradiction to the insanity using even greater insanity. People will not shoot a slug through a full choke but you can find them shooting about anything out of any shotgun; socket wrench sockets, threaded bolts, CO2 cartridges, slugs loaded backwards, sections of re-bar, nails, lawn darts and about anything any fool can stuff into a break action H&R shotgun.

I am not recommending any of that, just pointing out that the guns generally survive, as do the slam fire shotguns made from galvanized pipe that have flooded the You-tube channels.

In my own youth, long ago, in a land far far away, I wittinessed the indigenous people whittling sticks until they were nice and smoothly round and slip fit into the muzzles of their 16 gauge single shot smoothbores. They would then poke a hole in the ground with that stick. After emptying the shot from a shell into a heavy cast iron spoon they would melt it over a campfire and pour it into the hole in the ground. The resulting slug would be replaced into the shotgun shell, sometimes after being smoothed with a knife, and the slug used without hesitation. They did this because they did not have access to slugs and they wanted to hunt game larger then the normal #6 shot they had would permit. Accuracy was not an issue, they were usually shooting from 15-20 feet.

I have been hanging around gun shops for a great part of my life and I have found that the internet has replaced the group of geezers that used to hang around the counters of the LGS back in the day. There were some morons around that counter too, and often the owner of the shop was just as stupid as they were, and often if he had any sense he would not correct his best customers to their faces.

So these myths get handed down from one fool to the next whether it is on the internet or standing around the heater by the surplus rifle rack. Back in the day there were some writers that tried to correct the myths, O'Coner, Askins, Keith, Skeeter and others, but most of the people passing the myths could not read above a 2nd grade level and never read their stuff!

Like so much other myth handed down through history it all goes right back to the source.

You can't fix stupid.

[randyt]

thank you for your responses, I was hoping you guys would show up with a ten foot pole lol. From what I have read modified or improved choke generally groups better with slugs but who knows unless it is shot and verified, sometimes a full choke groups very well ....... It really touches a nerve for some reason, not at my buddy but the spreading of the myth. he is petrified of shooting a slug in a full choke shotgun, petrified to death.

I would rep you fellas but s says to spread it around.

[kyratshooter]

One of the aspects of this myth which I find very troubling is that there have been many fine shotguns that were cut down over the decades in order to "improve their slug performance".

When the result was that the slug performance did not improve and the gun was generally made useless for any other purpose.

Cutting down the barrel of a shotgun does not guarantee anything except destruction of the value of the gun.

Deer season lasts 2 weeks in most places, small game season, where you need that choke, lasts the other 25-50 weeks of the year depending on where you live.


BTW, when recommending the .410 with slugs keep in mind that the .410 slug is actually an 80 grain 9mm slug and performs as such. It is usually a "rattle fit" in the .410 bore and out the full choke which normally measures .380.

You can not get a larger slug in the shell without swelling it and not much that fits the shell casing will stabilize.

SPGuns gets his accuracy out of that Seiga due to the long screw in choke tube he uses.

Don't expect much.

[hunter63]

These days....the full choke, long barrel, seems to have fallen out of favor....as these were favored for long range waterfowl hunting in the past.
With steel shot required for waterfowl and well as increased law banning lead...The new myths involved with that...steel doesn't compress, tight choke scatter a pattern....etc etc.

Unlike in the past buying a new gun you chose the choke you wanted for everything....Not necessary now as most have the screw in chokes...so pick your poison....I have multi choke for each...derision is based on pattern.

Older shot gun with fixed barrels (or at least hard to change with fixed chokes were a whole different ball game....the "Need to shoot a slug thru a full choke" is only a preference.

[randyt]

cutting down a shot gun barrel is almost a cult following. The .410 s not much but if the blind was up close and personal to the bait pile and shot placement was good it would probably do.

[hunter63]

I don't get that at all......cutting off a choke and sight to make a new useless version or a great do everything.

The "Bushcraft wood bumming cut down H&R 20ga" is the new Shiney Nickel, I guess.........

What the heck is a "woods bumming gun" anyway.

Have a .410....couple of them...but again why shoot slugs?....Unless you "want to".

[LowKey]

I'm kinda new when it comes to shotguns so forgive the question.
I have a Remington 500 that came with swap-out "bird" barrel and "slug" barrel. The bird barrel seems much lighter and came with a changeable choke. The slug barrel is heavier and fully rifled, no choke. And man does that slug barrel kick.

Are you guys saying you use "bird" barrels with chokes for slugs?
Or is this like all things guns, depends on the shotgun?

[randyt]

I'm not advocating 410 slugs for deer but if that's all you got.

[kyratshooter]

I'm kinda new when it comes to shotguns so forgive the question.
I have a Remington 500 that came with swap-out "bird" barrel and "slug" barrel. The bird barrel seems much lighter and came with a changeable choke. The slug barrel is heavier and fully rifled, no choke. And man does that slug barrel kick.

Are you guys saying you use "bird" barrels with chokes for slugs?
Or is this like all things guns, depends on the shotgun?

I am going to approach this query step by step starting with the shotgun you are using.

First, you do not have a Remington 500.

1. you have a Mossberg 500
or
2. you have a Remington 870

Go look at the gun and find out which you have. It will be stamped into the metal.

Next, look down the "slug barrel" and see if it is rifled. Most "swap out barrels" have a hunting barrel and a riot gun barrel which is smooth bore. Most are not the rifled barrel, which is a much more expensive tube than most sets permit. No, it is not rifled just because it has sights.

I am asking that you look because you did not look at the gun to tell what brand it was to start with. Your first assumption may be wrong.

As for the bird barrel and its choke tubes; yes there are rifled choke tubes available which the internet wonders say are useless but I have found improve slug accuracy greatly. My rifled choke tube cuts groups in half at 50 yards from a couple of my barrels.

https://www.basspro.com/Carlsons-Rif...product/94899/

One can also buy extra full choke tubes for use when turkey hunting, but my experience with them has been spotty from gun to gun. I have a couple of barrels that will group tighter with the regular full choke tube than with the extra full. They also vary in performance due to shot size. Go figure. That is why you need to pattern your shotgun.

Now for the "Kick" when using slugs. That has something to do with Newtons laws of motion ad action/reaction stuff.

You are shooting a 1 ounce load of #8 shot at 1250+- feet per second from the bird barrel. Then you decide to shoot a 1 ounce slug at 1600 feet per second from the slug barrel.

Guess what, the slug is going to kick more than the shot load. It is called physics, not the mysteries and myths of shooting! It is all about the shells and has nothing to do with the gun or the barrel.

Now the trick from this point is to not be NEW at shotgunning for any longer than it takes to get out to the shotgun range. I am not talking about going out and shooting a couple of slugs and a magazine full of bird shot. I am talking going out and burning some powder!

Shotgunning sports are high volume shooting activities. It is very easy to go to the trap range and shoot more 12 gauge shells in one afternoon than most shooters will ever put down range from a .300 Winchester Magnum rifle in a lifetime.

My local club shoots trap two nights a week from 7-10pm and Sunday afternoons. They charge $5 for a round of 25 shots. There will even be a dozen friendly people standing around to tell you what you are doing wrong!

I can just about guarantee that if you get to the point where you can hit 15 out of 25 from the 16 yard line at trap you would be able to keep yourself fed in a woods type emergency. that would be especially true if you were shooting at standing targets.

Which also brings up my other most irritating myth, EFFECTIVE SHOTGUN RANGE!

[randyt]

I'm glad to know about rifled choke tubes, I'm going to try one or two.

[randyt]

I'm thnking all those wasted shotguns that wee cut down, maybe could be saved by installing choke tubes or maybe a poly choke.

[kyratshooter]

I would recommend that you get the rifled choke tube to match the most popular thread pattern you have sitting around. Mossberg tubes also fit Winchester and H&R Topper, but not the Pardner Pump (PP takes Remington tubes).

The Turkish guns that are flooding the market now mostly take the Benelli tubes.

At any rate, I would get a tube that would fit several of my barrels just so you can check them out and pick what works best.

I have found several people that do the reaming and threading of barrels for the threaded tubes but they are expensive.

Expensive enough to justify buying the reamer and tap from Brownels or other spots if you have more than one barrel to salvage. the cost for reamer and tap is less than $100.

And sadly, most of us do have more than one.

We also usually know another poor soul or two that was suckered in by the myth of the short barrel, so having the set might be handy.

Turning a ruined gun back into a 40 yard game gun might include Karma points down the line.

As for the poly choke device, that is a difficult one. The Polychoke requires turning down the outside of the barrel, then threading the outside of the tube, then screwing the device onto the barrel and indexing it, then silver soldering the unit in place. On top of that the device will run about $100 without the installation fee. And slugs are not recommended for the Polychoke.

Choke tubes are better and cheaper from my perspective. Not saying I do not have a couple so equipped lying about. And they work very well.

[LowKey]

Thanks for that. Mossberg 500.
It is rifled. It didn't come as a store kit. I got the shotgun as a trap/skeet/bird gun with changeable chokes and the rifled barrel came as an extra cuz I asked the shop owner for a decent slug barrel for deer hunting. We can only use slugs here. It's scoped and I can keep it to a 3-4" group unbenched at 50 yards. The same benched at 100. Working on it. Haven't gone out for deer with it yet. Not a good enough shot IMO.

With trap, I can hit about half the birds out of 25. Anything that breaks far right I still have trouble with. Might be a left handed thing. Might be a back thing. Might be a stance thing. The guys at the trap range where I go don't like it when someone uses a pump shotgun on their trap range, so not a lot of help there. A new place I just joined doesn't care, so maybe I'll get better at it.

I just asked cuz an old-timer was telling a story at the range about going deer hunting and not noticing he still had the bird barrel on the shotgun til he was all the way out in the bush. Got a deer anyway "even if that slug rattled its way down the barrel." Coulda just been a story. It wasn't a story about an exploding barrel.

Sorry.
Didn't grow up with this stuff.

[kyratshooter]

You are doing the right thing Lowkey. Find a club that accepts what you have and then do your best to wear your gear out!

You do not have to know everything about shotgunning to know what you need to function. You just have to know what works for you when you pull the trigger.

Which choke tube are you using for shooting trap? Did the dealer give you the whole set or just the one in the barrel?

[Old GI]

I won't take sides on these issues, but I am sure those discussions were happening well before the internet.

[hunter63]

I won't take sides on these issues, but I am sure those discussions were happening well before the internet.

Yeah they have...Just not as many places to "discuss truths"...as there are now....any recliner will do... to take sides....LOL
I have shot slugs thru a full choke , wouldn't hesitate to go it again....never had a problem......I just don't have to.

If I was to have to use a pump gun or auto loader for slugs.....would use a Mod or I.C.......or if I was going to use all the time....I would buy the screw-in rifled choke for slugs.
.
There also a difference in slug types....."Fostner lead slugs with rifling on the slug, not supposed to be used in fully rifled barrel... as they do "lead up" the rifling.
Plastic cupped (like a shot cup) sabot slugs (more expensive), but don't lead up....are recommended.

For shot......The choke pattern on the same choke, can vary, from gun to gun, and from shot size to shot size,as well.
Rifled barrels are not recommended for shot.

One extra full turkey choke ..Tight dense pattern 20+ pellets in 12" @30 yds......one gun to 18" a donut in another gun.....same shot size.
Pattern Everything.

Lowkey....
You are doing a very good thing by asking.......every so often a gem on information falls into place....and the light come on in your head
Practice is never wasted.

I have one local range I no longer go to......as the "Membership" are mostly a-wholes....and it's expensive......$25 bucks for non members.
That makes an unwelcome experience, that one may have to endure.....if you want to shoot.

[kyratshooter]

Yep, every gun is different and the problem with the "Myth" is that it always applies the myth to every gun.

Usually starts with "everybody knows" or the more common internet phrase "it has been proven".

Every gun is different and every choke tube is different.

You have to pattern YOUR shotgun with all the tubes and with a variety of shot sizes, then do separate group tests with slugs just like you would with a rifle.

Now that sounds like a lot of work, and a lot of shooting, and a lot of counting pellets in a huge sheet of paper. Almost makes buying a new gun a work related experience!

3 or 4 pattern sheets for each choke tube, group measurements for several different slugs.

Good thing I am retired and have plenty of time!

And I sure do hate to lose count right in the middle of one of those quadrant counts of #8 shot! There's about 350 shot in a 12 gauge load of those things!

[hunter63]

Years ago...when shotguns did not come with choke tubes for the factory....there was a Mom and Pop LGS......That would sell you a "Box" 25 shells....you could mix rounds of different manufacture/shot size.

So 3-4 boxes would cover, #2 #4... water fowl, #5 #6... upland, #7-1/2, #8...Trap/sheet.....other wise would cost you plenty.
That was all lead.....
Now it's even worse....steel shot, copper plated, Bismuth, Hevi-shot......so makes the combination even harder.

I won't even comment on other Myths...they are rampant.....

Latest one I have heard...My H&R SS froze up on my 4 wheeler in the rain and snow.....that means it is Myth the all single shot are more reliable.

I'm still not over the fact that "No deer have been killed with a 30-30" since the interweb was invented.