I have a single shot handi-rifle with a 12 ga MODIFIED choke barrel on it. Anyone ever shoot slugs thru a similarly choked barrel?

I have a Lyman 525 grain slug mold. The things look like a giant pellet gun pellet. I have already dropped one thru the barrel and there is wiggle room around the bearing edge of the pellet. I will use it in a fiocchi hull with a Winchester AA shot cup.

Looks like this

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MikeinNC,

I've shot them through all the way down to Xtra-full.

Wasn't very accurate, but no other issues. My light Mod's all shoot slugs well. I have some fulls that do well also.


There's no set rules which slugs, or what chokes work best.

When “slugs” were solid round balls, firing one that fit the rear portion of the bore through a choke could cause damage. The “Foster” design that has ribs on the bearing surface and a large hollow cavity at the rear can be fired through choked barrels with no problem. Other designs besides a tight round ball, however, could cause damage to the choke if they present too much resistance to being swaged down to the choke diameter. The tighter the choke, the more likely a problem.

Although I’m not certain, I suspect that most manufacturers of slugs and moulds for casting them these days would ensure the diameter is small enough to be fired through a full choke without causing damage—unless, of course, specific warning to the contrary is provided.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
When “slugs” were solid round balls, firing one that fit the rear portion of the bore through a choke could cause damage. The “Foster” design that has ribs on the bearing surface and a large hollow cavity at the rear can be fired through choked barrels with no problem. Other designs besides a tight round ball, however, could cause damage to the choke if they present too much resistance to being swaged down to the choke diameter.

I'm not at all up on shotgun slugs, but these days, aren't almost all of them either Foster-style or saboted?

I've shot them out of a full choke before, Winchester and Remington foster style slugs anyway. However, I have always considered slugs about as accurate as launching pumpkins. If you want real accuracy, get a rifled barrel and sabot slugs. Numerous people I know have them and love them.

You could shoot ‘rifled slugs’ through your Mod choked smoothbore just fine. I really doubt it would be all that accurate, likely limited with the sights/bead too.

quote:

Originally posted by jcsabolt2:
If you want real accuracy, get a rifled barrel and sabot slugs.

That ain’t gonna happen...I’ve got this new 12ga barrel for my handi-rifle and a coach gun....prolly won’t be dropping scratch on anymore shotguns in any configuration as I just don’t hunt birds. And I haven’t hunted in several years. These things are just range toys. Giant pellets with my giant pellet gun!!!

Personally I would prefer a Light Modified or larger choke een though Modified is supposed to be "safe" with slugs. The elephant that seems to be ignored with all theses "rules" id that the alloy used to cast the slug isn't provided. I suspect that if you have a Hard Cast slug and force it through a Modified choke you just might find that was the wrong thing to do. My recommendation would b that you use a Foster slug instead of that giant pellet of yours because a Foster slug has a reduce bearing surface area and will have a bit more "give" to accommodate a tighter choke.

In VN the Army issued off the shelf Ithaca Deer Slayers, they even still have the engraving on the side of the receiver and were commercial blue. They were also full choke, some seemed "extra full" via the dime test. We used 00 buck and slugs, lots of slugs through those guns with no problems whatsoever.
Many guys preferred slugs for guard duty when you would be able to see your target as opposed to walking point on a patrol where you just slam fired all 5 rounds (4 in the mag one in the chamber) in the general direction of the BGs.
I saw a couple of guys hit with slugs, they went down, hard and fast, and none of them showed any inclination to get up again.
In my later LE career I used slugs in shotguns (12 & 20 gauge) in every type of choke, no problems. Of course I never used just a ball slug, always the Foster rifled slug or from time to time a sabot round which just squirted through any choke as the bore sized element was soft plastic-waste of money though-sabot slugs should only be used in rifled barrels where they give the best accuracy.

We recently had to use slug rounds, off hand, at 3Gun on two static steel targets at 100 yards. It’s surprising how accurate you can be at that range with slugs. Accurate meaning actually hitting the steel target somewhere.

So I went to the range yesterday and loaded up several...

Primed fiocchi hulls
WinAA12 shotcups

And loaded with...
21
22
23 grains of UNIQUE, cause that’s what I have.

23 grains was the ticket.

Got em out to 50 yards and they were very accurate with a beaded front sight and no rear sight.

The worry I had about the choke was over nothing...I cast them out of range scrap so they were pretty soft.

I disagree that forster slugs are inaccurate, I've seen a group of guys at my range put 3 slugs within a 2" circle at 100yds, for deer hunting in my area that is more than satisfactory.

2" isn't much room for 3 holes the size of 12ga slugs.

Remington ammunition out of a Remington 1100 with slug barrel, rifle sights and a 4x scope.

Smooth barrel, not rifled.

Frankly, I was impressed.