A general rule of thumb is: The more open the choke, the better the barrel will handle slugs. Full-bore slugs like Brenneke commonly prefer a slight constriction. Also, the best smoothbore barrels for slug shooting are finely polished, particularly in the crown and forcing cone areas.
My most accurate slug smoothbores also have barrels fixed to the receivers. If you pin the barrel to the receiver, or epoxy it in place, it can later be removed for cleaning or to switch to a scattergun barrel. I really feel that if you want the best accuracy out of a smoothbore gun and full-bore slugs, you must mount optics on the gun.
The finer you are able to aim, the more accurate you will be with the right load and barrel. Drilling and tapping the receiver for a scope rail is the best way to go. The rail can always accommodate some sort of sight for turkey hunting, also, or could be removed entirely for waterfowl or small game hunting.
A smoothbore barrel should be cleaned more regularly than a rifled bore, primarily because the slug rides on the barrel walls. Conversely, a saboted slug never touches the walls in a rifled bore due to the sabot sleeves. You will find, however, that a slightly fouled two to three shots smoothbore barrel will often be more accurate than one that is squeaky clean. The tolerances are tighter. I recommend forgoing the ritual of cleaning a slug gun barrel the night before opening day.
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Disabled Hunters. Advertise With Us. About Buckmasters. Email Subscription. Realtree Timber2Table. Current Articles Archives Search. I have a Russian single shot 20 gauge, with a chrome lined IC barrel, I made an epoxy rear sight for it and use the bead as a front sight, it shoots marvelously well with Challenger Brenneki style slugs.
I one time outshot a rather fancy laminated thumb-stock, scope mounted. You could not knock the grin off my face with a shovel. Thank you, very interesting article and test. I found information about shooting sabot slugs through a smooth bore extremely useful. You missed the main takeaway from your article: that at the distance you shot the smooth bore with rifled slugs if you had put a scope on it would have been I dentical in accuracy to the rifled barrel using sabots that did have a scope on it.
Bottom line: two scoped shotguns, one rifled and firing sabots yields the same accuracy as does a scoped smooth bore shooting rifled slugs!! I have a Winchester M59 with a full choke barrel. Can I shoot slugs through this barrel? Can I cut the barrel in order to have no choke? It would make a great gun for ruffed grouse and rabbits.
Hi Jim. Sorry for the slow reply. But at least in southeast Texas, most shots at deer are at longer distances. At yards, the scope and rifled barrel and sabots would shoot more accurately than a normal rifled slug from a smooth bore. When I switched to Federal rifled slugs they were all over the target. Lesson: you are right, find the ammo your particular gun shoots best. I have a combo gun — over a 12ga. It has nice sights, so I tried both regular slugs and sabot slugs to see if I could take advantage of the good sights.
Regular slugs shot well. The sabot would shoot a few of the slugs to a tight group but some fliers, much farther out than you had. Conclusion was sabot are only for rifles barrels. Might work in a rifled choke, too. Fullbore slugs back then had their drawbacks recoil, poor accuracy, looping trajectory , but lethality was not one of them.
Slugs are better now. To 75 yards they have become extremely accurate. Stores around here stock huge piles of K.
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