Sabot slug accuracy with rifled choke tube

M

Major Dave (retired)

New member
in a smooth bore barrel.

I have a Rem 870 Wingmaster that I bought a "slug barrel" for in the mid 70's. The barrel is 18.5 inches long, smooth bore, and open cylinder fixed choke.

Then someone invented the rifled bore and sabot slugs for accuracy to distances beyond 100 yards.

Others invented the rifled choke tube, for smooth bore barrels.

So, my question is - how accurate are smooth bore barrels equipped with rifled choke tubes shooting sabot slugs?:confused:

One magazine article I read said that the choke tube needed 5 inches of rifling to shoot sabot slugs accurately. Most of them have only about 3 inches of rifling, but Browning, for one, has 5 inches.

I would appreciate hearing from you if you have experience with shooting sabot slugs thru rifled choke tubes.;)
 
I can't share any firsthand experience regarding rifled choke tube accuracy, but the general idea I have gathered over time is that a rifled choke tube is no substitute for a rifled barrel and a lot of sabots (especially the higher speed ones) won't do real well from a rifled choke tube.

Instead it is recommended to use a rifled choke tubed to improve the accuracy of slugs that don't really need a rifled barrel. Some examples that come to mind are Lightfield Hybred slugs and Remington Buckhammers.

The Lightfields are sabots, but are designed a little differently to be suitable for smoothbore and rifled barrels. Your choke tube might not add a lot of spin to these, but since they don't technically need it, a little spin might be enough to improve accuracy.

Remington Buckhammers are specifically advertized as being intended for rifled barrels and rifled choke tubes, so those might be worth a look.

Brenneke makes good rifled slugs that are more accurate and have greater range than most rifled slugs, and they claim that shooting those slugs through rifled choke tubes can further improve accuracy.
 
sabot slugs are for rifled barrels, by that I mean "fully rifled barrels".

You can shoot them through a smoothbore, you just don't get any benefit at all and in fact you may lose gyroscopic stability because of the fact the sabots aren't engaging any rifling to "make it work".


As far a rifled choke for sabot slugs, that sounds an awful lot like some BS to me... I mean again, you can surely do it and blast away repeatedly time after time, but I doubt you're gaining anything and possibly losing some accuracy.

Standard cheap level "rifled slugs" for a smoothbore barrel, sabot slugs for fully rifled barrel.
 
If your rifled choke has deep sharp cut rifling it should do just fine although like you I am predisposed to think the longer the better. As long as you can get 2" groups at 60 and 4" five shot groups at 100 yards you are in the kill zone. Just between you me and the neighbors dog I would just stick with Foster or Brenneke slugs and an IM choke give or take a size. My 12's and 20's give me 4" 100 yard groups with that combination and I'm not going to shoot a slug farther than that anyway.

Even though I kept 5 shots on a deer silhouette target at 200 yards with my 20 gauge slug gun it gathers dust in the gun rack while I use my smooth bores. I have rifles for that far.
No it wasn't really a group and only 2 of the shots would have been fast kills.
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I agree, I wouldn't buy a rifled tube under 5"s. Kinda throwing your money away if the slug doesn't have space to have proper and consistant spin imparted. I have a rifled "diffusion" tube for my Benelli, I haven't used slugs throught it yet, but the rifling is deep and it's about 5"
 
When Benelli calls it

a "diffusion" tube, they might mean it will open up the pattern of bird shot, rather than stabilize a slug.

Maybe.

I don't know.

I'm just saying.
 
I have both. The tube shoots almost as well as the fully rifled barrel. I put a slug gun together as inexpensively as possible years ago using a Carlson tube, and a Millet saddle mount. It would group 2-3 " at 100 yds with Winchester BRI sabots. I killed a dozen or so deer with that setup
I picked up a fully rifled barrel a couple of years ago, and with what it likes it will shoot about 2" ar 100 yds. Doesnt kill the deer any deader.
 
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