Slugs in a smooth bore?

Accuracy should be typical for the smoothbore designed slugs--the Foster and the Brenneke. 8 MOA (plus or minus) is typical, but you'd need rifle sights to get the benefit out past 50 yds. They're called rifled slugs because it is thought that the "rifling" makes the slug spin in flight. It doesn't. It's the weight forward design of the slug that makes it fly relatively straight.

Incidentally, the new Federal Truball slug design cuts groups in half in my limited testing from my smoothbore 870. Try some. They come in reduced recoil and standard.

Rifled barrels are needed to get the accuracy from Sabots, and they do very well. I'm not sure if Foster or Brenneke "rifled slugs" benefit much from rifled barrels. I do know that rifled barrels are terrible with buckshot since the spinning shot flies all over as soon as it leaves the muzzle. :cool:
 
As the other folks have noted above, you want rifled slugs. Something has to make that projectile spin to stabilize it like a good football toss. If your barrel is rifled, you want a smooth projectile. If your barrel is smooth, you want a rifled projectile. It's a helical pattern of pressure application that spins the projectile in either case. The best results are obtained with a rifled barrel and smooth projectile though, if you have an equal choice to make.
 
I do know that rifled barrels are terrible with buckshot since the spinning shot flies all over as soon as it leaves the muzzle
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Is that a fact? Seems logical, but so many things do SEEM logical that are just plain misconceptions.
 
I saw some pictures of patterns made by regular shot, shot trough a rifled barrel when I was searching for exactly the same info a few months ago, and the patterns where (more or less) doughnut-shaped.
 
Nnobby is correct ,the "rifling" on slugs is not there to spin the slug.It's there to make it easier [safer] to shot in a choked barrel.
 
Yes, I agree with the above. Slugs will compres like an air rifle pellet within reason. Apparently the "rifling" does add some spin, but that is an added bonus.
 
Slugs in a Smoothbore

We've seen some unusually good results in smoothbores from a Sabot Slug that Hastings introduced just last year. All slugs we've seen over the years like a rifled barrel better than a smoothie, but the Hastings sabot slugs keep showing up as winners in our SlugShooter's competitions. Completely different approach, the Sabot doesn't shed from the slug until it hits the target, gives you a "slug" with a .110 coefficient, like triple the length of any others in flight. Not that we know anything about it of course, we just work for the American SlugShooting Association. www.slugshooting.com
 
If rifled slugs do rotate, as noted, that is just a bonus. Unlike a rifled barrel where the rifling cuts into the slug and spin is produced, the relatively soft lead of a 'rifled' slug does NOT cut into the barrel to produce spin. The rifling on the slug just doesn't work in the same way as barrel rifling.
 
Slugs, Rifling, Etc.

Hate to throw a spin on the rifling discussion, BUT the "rifling" on any full-bore solid like a Foster is there not for spin, and not for safety, but to allow the lead to "upset" (flow under pressure) on acceleration and act as a gas seal in the bore, and to let the slug spread out horizontally to stabilize it as it goes down the barrel. It is because of the stabilization and sealing effects and the extra length of the Foster type slugs that those "rifled" slugs give better accuracy from the smoothbore guns.
In contrast, a rifled type slug in a rifled barrel just shaves lead and fills the barrel rifling in a few shots to the point where you are going to be more accurate pitching bricks than using that combination.

The plastic sabot slugs solve a lot of that, although there again some plastic Sabots fill up your rifling with shaved plastic, so after a few shots the advertised accuracy goes away. SlugShooting has come a hell of a long way in just the last few years, and a lot of the progress hinges on NOT accepting what the conventional wisdom keeps offering up as the truth.

Even some of the big ammo guys are still looking at slugs and sabots and such without applying any new knowledge. After all the term Sabot itself came from the French, and what the hell do they know about guns? A saboted load from them when that term was invented was a cannon shell wrapped in soft cloth or cardboard to keep it from wiping out their bronze and soft steel cannon barrels.
Accurate? How about a catapult?

Oh by the way, there are rifled buckshot/birdshot guns around that are a ton more accurate than everybody's pet smoothbores, no matter what choke is in use. The trick is that these are "rifled' barreled guns with a ZERO twist. On skeet, clays, and escaping prisoners, the pattern density/downrange accuracy are improved by 5% to 10%, depending on the barrel/shot combination in use. Some of the slick trapshooters use these, never admit it, and if challenged will claim their gun's barrel got "scored" using steel shot...... hehehehehe :)

Want to find out how to do it right? Come chat with some of our competiton members at www.slugshooting.com :)
 
Avizpls

I do know that rifled barrels are terrible with buckshot since the spinning shot flies all over as soon as it leaves the muzzle
Click to expand...


"Is that a fact? Seems logical, but so many things do SEEM logical that are just plain misconceptions."

Yes, it's a fact that patterns are blown to pieces, and common sense would come to the aid of most of us with respect to why it happens--Avizpls not withstanding, apparently. :rolleyes:
 
Buckshot and Rifling

Again, guys, its that old wives tale club at work. The patterning foul ups of buck or birdshot out of a rifled barrel come not from a spin being created, since 75% of the pellets are not in the "spinzone" against the rifling, but in the midst of all the other pellets. The batch of fliers accounting for the lousy pattern are pellets that have been individually smashed and had their roundness shaved away by the rifling, creating misshapen chunks of lead with the aerodynamics of a flat rock skipping on lake water. Result is still a crappy pattern, but the WHY of it is not what everybody thinks.
 
OK, I have a related question. I bought a Remington 1100 Competition Master (sweet gun!) and it came with a rifled choke tube. The bore of the gun is smoothe of course, but what is this rifled choke tube? I'm thinking that maybe it is for sabot slugs...not the best, but at least there would be some spin on it...right?

Please help.
 
Rifled Choke Tube

Dead right. The Rifled choke tube is going to try to impart some spin during the last few milliseconds that the slug in in the barrel. It's a compromise that helps a little at shorter Bambi distances, within 45-65 yards from the muzzle. Most testing indicates a good tight rifled choke tube and a correct sized slug, whether solid or sabot will bring you into about a 6" to 8" deviation from intended target center. Bear in mind that the best of the new tech setups with slug guns that include rifled barrel, high value scopes (some use 32x "sniper" varmint scopes) and good ballistic coefficient slugs, will get inside 1 MOA. With those you are not wondering IF you get a hit, its more a metter of dueling calipers for the Top Gun awards.
 
ok its been universally agreed that slugs work ok in a smooth bore. so is it better to use sabot slugs, riffled slugs or standard smooth slugs?
 
Which Slugs for Smoothbore shotguns?

We're back to that old computer input problem - not enough data. The constants in the equation are that you are going to use a smoothbore shotgun and you need to use a slug load in it for some purpose. The variable that needs to be known to make the right choice is the target you are aiming to shoot at.

If the answer is fleeing felons at 50 feet, then any heavy payload slug would be dandy, so long as you can get them to turn to face you before you fire.

If its Bambi at 50 to 75 yards, look for a heavy payload soft lead bullet shaped slug. The longer the slug is in proportion to its diameter, the better its straight line accuracy, and the softer the lead, preferably with a hollowed out back end like an air rifle pellet, the more likely it will spread out and seal the bore, giving better muzzle velocity.

All this is only helpful in the 50-75 yard range, after which most factory loads lose velocity and stability at a very quick rate. If you're going to bang away at targets beyond 75 yards with a smoothbore, by all means first think MAGNUM, then try to find the same attributes we just listed in a long range slug.

Most folks who are successful out in the 100 yard distances either load their own specials, or use Sabot loads from one or two specialty houses that can come very close to rifle accuracy with their "buck or two per shot" hot whistlers.

If you go that route, let me borrow a piece of the slogan of a buddy over at Cast Bullet Associaton...."Bring Enough Gun". Don't go out and get a box or two of the high tech heavy load shells, and then try to fire them through a 50's era J.C. Higgens youth gun, unless you enjoy picking shrapnel out of your nostrils.
 
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