Rifled Choke Tube Test

M

mukjp22m

New member
I couldn't find a whole lot of data online about the effectiveness of rifled chokes, except for all the geniuses out there guessing that "a couple inches of rifling won't do anything". Being that 1 7/8 inches of rifling in a snub nosed revolver stabilizes a 38 special, I thought I'd give this a try.

I went to an indoor 75-yard range with my Benelli M2, fitted with a standard IC choke, and I also brought a Carlson's rifled choke tube I got from choketube.com. I was bench rested and heavily clothed with a leather recoil pad for what would be a punishing 38 slugs to the shoulder.

First up, 2 3/4 Federal Truball slugs. Smooth, they formed a 3-round, 3" group. With the rifled choke, same thing, 3". However, in this case, two of the shots hit the bullseye where the smooth group was patterned high and right.

Second, Winchester 2 3/4 Super X. Smooth, 4" group. Rifled, 5" group. However, again, two shots were on bullseye with one 5" flyer on the rifled group.

Since my other reason for going was to prepare for an upcoming pig hunt, I tried two types of slugs better suited for thick-skinned game:

Winchester 2 3/4 Razorback. Both the smooth and the rifled choke gave me a 4" group. In this case, neither looked like the better group.

Brenneke Black Magic 3" slugs. Smooth, formed a 4" group well off target. Rifled, it formed a very nice 2.5" group just off bullseye. I later put up another target and put another 2 rounds within 1.5 inches of each other.

I also tried a few of these slugs through a fully rifled barrel. The truballs did marginally worse than they did through the smooth bore. The Brenneke's keyholed!

So, to sum it up, I'd say that a rifled choke has very little effect on a foster slug, though if anything, it does help slightly. A Brenneke slug, however, is affected pretty dramatically. Unlike Fosters, the Brenneke slugs are made for smooth AND rifled barrels. Smooth, they are okay, maybe not even quite as accurate as a foster. Rifle choked, they tighten up considerably better than a foster, and fully rifled, they have sabot-like accuracy, though with less reach because of their relatively low velocity and poor ballistic coefficient.

A couple inches of rifling IS beneficial, so long as the slug can grip it. Seems the Brennekes can and the fosters barely can.

Oh, and Truball slugs are considerably more accurate from a smoothbore than these other slugs.
 
Isn't rifling only recommended for sabot slugs?

I have read tests like these with sabots and the rifled chokes helped but they still didn't shoot like a fully rifled barrel did.
 
My understanding is that the rifling could help with some slower sabots, such as Winchester BRIs.

I believe they also are supposed to improve performance with Lightfield's Hybred slugs and Remington's discontinued Buckhammers. Both of these work best in fully rifled barrels but have a plastic wad attached at the back to give a shuttlecock effect out of smooth barrels.

Most Brennekes are designed for either barrel, but they say rifling will imrove accuracy. The OP's results back that statement up.
 
Ah, thanks for mentioning "discontinued" on the buckhammers. I read about them online all the time, but I haven't seen them in stores for years, so I was wondering.

Yeah, the choke tube alone isn't enough to stabilize a sabot. However, I once fired a specific Winchester sabot slug (maybe the one mentioned above) which specified that it works in rifled chokes. It made a clean hole, but it wasn't very accurate. Seems that Brenneke, or Brenneke style (Lightfield) slugs are the only ones that would really benefit significantly from a rifled choke.

Nice thing about shotguns is you can fire any kind of shell through any kind of barrel (unless you have some tight choke in for bird hunting) and it will fire safely. At really close range, in a pinch, anything can be fired effectively, including a sabot from a smooth bore.
 
Ooops, just realized I used a term incorrectly. I said the Brennekes keyholed through the fully rifled barrel. I think that would mean that they didn't stabilize and hit the target at an angle. What I meant was to say that the holes left by the three rounds were touching, forming a really tight group.
 
I used the remington Buckhammers in my 1100 with a 20" barrel & rifled choke tube. with the normal iron sights, I could put 5 rounds into about 4" at 100 yds consistently. after that, my flinch would rear it's ugly head preventing me from hitting anything. but they stabilized & shot well out of the rifled choke.
 
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