Steel shot in a Rem 1100 with a full choke barrell?

[Bird Dogs]

I have a Rem 1100 with full choke barrell and I am going to start waterfowl hunting. I am wondering if I can shoot the larger Steel shot with a full choke? The gun is a 1970's model.

[fabsroman]

You can, but I wouldn't. It also depends on how much you like that gun/barrel.

The biggest problem is that a full choke barrel is way too tight, and the barrel might develop a bulge near the end of the barrel where the choke is located from the ungiving steel trying to pass through it.

The second problem is that steel patterns a lot tighter than lead because it does not deform under pressure (i.e., there are less fliers out of the pattern and less dramatic effects on the pellets from wind resistance). So, you will be shooting a Xtra Full + on those ducks/geese, which isn't really good unless you are shooting them 60 yards away, and I wouldn't recommend that for a beginning waterfowler unless you have been shooting a bunch of clays.

You can probably pick up a replacement barrel with screw in chokes for the gun at a pretty decent price. I would guess it would be around $200 and maybe even $150. I know Remington makes them, and you might also want to check out Hastings. A barrel with screw in chokes will allow you to use that gun for anything you want to shoot/hunt.

[kt]

i wouldnt chance it at all due to risking damage to the gun, as fabs said a replacement barrel is relatively cheap i have looked at one for my 870, what pisses me off is a barrel is a little over two and i could buy a new 870 at 250 dollars. silly if you ask me.
on top off that, i see our teal/wood duck season upon me and i could not imagine going after them as they zip buy at 15 yds with a full choke, i have enough trouble with IC. get a barrel with chokes and you will enjoy breaking into the sport a lot more
kt

[Bird Dogs]

I like the idea of a new barrel, I agree they are expensive! I just found a 28'' vent rib with 3 chokes for $250! I only paid $325 for the 1100 which had only been fired once!

[fabsroman]

Honestly, I would buy a new gun at those prices if you have the money. If the new barrel costs $200 and a new gun costs $400 to $500, I would buy the new gun if I could afford it. Never hurts to have more guns around. If one of the 1100's or 870's breaks down, you can still use the other.

[Aim to maim]

Steel shot of any size through a full choke barrel will damage it quickly. Perhaps keep/sell the 1100 as a dedicated turkey gun and purchase something with interchangeable chokes for your waterfowl hunting.

[skeet]

Go ahead and use the bbl with steel. It won't really hurt it unless you are going to be using BBB or T shot through the gun. It will shoot pretty tight patterns though. BB's may spread out a bit. ...mainly because the bore may be too tight for them. Remington even says it is alright to shoot steel in their bbls. Look on ebay for another bbl You can usually find one for under 125 bucks...but not with screw chokes. Another alternative is to take the gun to a smith and have the choke opened up a bit. Won't hurt the gun a bit and will even help your normal shooting ...probably. Welcome to this forum. Some nice guys here...course I'm one of the best!! As for Fabs....well you know attorneys!! hehehe

[fabsroman]

Yeah, Skeet likes to make me look bad, on the clays course, the board, and anywhere else he can. However, he keeps hanging out with me for some reason. Guess I can't be that bad, or maybe he just gets a kick out of giving me a hard time. LOL

[Catfish]

I think Birddog hit the nail on the head, befor I would pay $250 for a new barrel I would pickup an 870 Express with a plastic stock. If you drop it in the mud, no big deal. If you can fin a used one the cost should be the same or less.

[gold40]

Why not just buy a few boxes of bismuth or tungsten shot? Most of us only fire 20 or 30 rounds a year at waterfowl. Its not worth ruining the barrel.

[tjwatty]

Gold40,
I hunted waterfowl last year 19 days. That would be the LEAST amount I've hunted in the last 20 yrs or so. We got frozen out otherwise we would have been out our average. In a 60 day season we average 45 days and I usually shoot anywhere from 250 to 500 shots a year. Now would you like to buy me Bismuth?
Last year in 19 days we got 168 ducks of which 101 were mallards. Now I realize I might be the exception but I think that waterfowlers shoot more than 30 or 40 shots a year, hell I see guys that only hunt saturdays and they eat up that many a day.
I do have a box of heavy shot I carry for geese but when your the only caller in the blind (most days) you don't really have time to switch even with a gun that has a cut out. Most of the time I'm not smart enough to grab the right gun anyway, 20ga.(bluebill and teal gun) is not really the ideal gun to shoot geese with.

[skeet]

As TJ said..I shot a lot of shells at waterfowl. More on the order of a thousand shells. BUT most of them were shot at cripples(even in lead shot days). I guided quite a bit. My main waterfowl guns were Remington 1100's..2 3/4" and 3" fixed choke guns..Usually full choke. I shot over 1400 steel shot shells in one 1100 Trap bbl full choke gun one year. Steel really sucks as a sustitute for lead and the average person is a pretty bad shot. That 1100 bbl looked as good and shot as good after those shells as it did before. That was shot size to BB. When I started shooting T shot I found it didn't pattern as well as it should. Took a barrel hone(Brownells) and relieved the choke in a 3" 1100 bbl until I got it shooting good patterns. Shot that gun for 3 yrs exclusively with T and BBB shot. It never hurt the bbl any at all. And I have a bore micrometer. The bore expanded .002 in three yrs shooting more than 3500 Steel shot shells in it. Heck my measuring could have been off that much. So shoot those older Remington bbls guys. They can handle the steel(Remington even says so).:D
In the last 5 yrs I have used hevi shot almost exclusively for shooting mostly geese and find that I have about 90% DRT kills on geese..and the approx 100 or so ducks per year are about 85% DRT..but I shoot a lot of woodies in the woods so they are a little trickier. I still use steel for cripples and on the few teal I shoot. A long shot on teal is 20 yds where I shoot. A lot of the steel I shoot for cripples is some reloads of 1 1/8 oz of steel 6's I loaded for teal. This was in my save more money period. Loaded more than 3500 shells. Now they have steel target loads in 7's that are cheap and kill cripples well. Going back to Md to hunt in the Oct season on ducks..geese after they open and in Jan at the last of the goose season so we'll see how the new Remington HD shells work. One of the Reps gave me a few boxes to try out. Gonna try the shells on the geese out here too!

[fabsroman]

Yeah, I wasn't going to mention anything about the 20 to 30 rounds a year at waterfowl, but I definitely shoot more than that. On occassion, I have gone through close to two boxes of shells in a single day.

[tjwatty]

skeet,
I discovered those 7's steel by accident. We have to use it at State areas for doves and I had a box left over so I put it in the boat. Dang stuff does a real good job on cripples. I'm usually running the boat and the "rookies" get cripple duty. As you know it can be a real hoot when the wind is a blowin and the waves are large. The 7's skip real nice when shot short at low angle, seems to hit heads better. My son even finished off a goose last year that was doing the snorkle sneak, darn near rip the top of his head at 25 yrds or so.

[skeet]

Yeah TJ.. I always used trap loads for cripples...except the real long ones. Used to shoot a lot of diving ducks at one time and found that the trap loads worked great.. easy to shoot and a whole lot cheaper than those duck and goose loads. Especially if you reloaded them anyway. And if you were laying in the front of a boat they just covered the duck right up. BTW you don't stand up in a little skiff in a big river or the bay when chasing crips. Sooner or later you will be overboard:rolleyes: I only have 2 boxes of those steel 6's left. Loaded in the old style WAA hulls. Still shoot good too. Luck with the duck this year

[skeet]

BTW guys. Back when you could shoot lead... I had a great load in the ol AA case. Sure some of y'all used it too. Win 209 30 grains of Alcan 7 a red winchester wad and an ounce and 3/8ths of either copper plated 5's for ducks or the same amount of nickle 3's for geese. Still have some of the duck loads left that I'll use on the pheasants out here this year. Found 3 boxes in an ammo can when we were packing to move. sigh..oh for those days again.!!

[tjwatty]

Little Skiff???? My boat is a Lowe 18ft 6 degree bottom, the other 2 in the blind are both 18ft. but the one we use in bad weather is extra wide and deep, older model Polar Kraft, no problems. Mine has 60hp Eveinrude, boat #2 has a 50 Merc. and the big one is a 70 Evin. That big boat has saved my bacon more than once. We have about a 4 mile boat ride to the blind and we are in a large bay just north of lock and dam 18 on the Mississippi. You used to be able to see the blinds from the satillite images but I haven't looked for a while.
A small boat is not what you want when a south wind starts blowing, and that's our prevailing wind most days. I've even stayed at the dock a couple of times cause I thought it was too rough.

Skeet, that's almost the exact same load we used except we used Herco powder. I had an old Winchester Ranger at that time and my shoulder still hurts when I think of it. LOL One heck of a pheasant load tho.

[skeet]

TJ, I hate to tell ya this but on the Chesapeake in those ol Northwest winds those ARE little skiffs. You can be out there in the most beautiful weather one minute and then ya see it coming. When I set up my first fishing sea duck boat I bought a Key West 17 1/2 footer. Put a 90 on that boat. It'll do 50 in fair weather.40 in rough and you still stay pretty dry. The 90 was so I could get back in a hurry if needed. I needed it a few times too.Hunted ducks on the Chesapeake one day with a 20 ft bay built skiff and almost got killed going 300 yds back to shore. That 300 yds took almost 40 minutes in that 40 mile an hour wind. BTW we left the decoys. It came up that quick. The blind we were hunting in(called a booby blind) was six ft higher than high tide and waves were hitting the bottom when we left(low tide BTW). It was gone by the time we got to shore. I understand the great lakes can get like that too. We sometimes do stupid things for a little ol duck or goose...or deer for that matter. Seriously be careful out there.:cool: