rifled shotgun choke tubes?

[newB]

Had a discussion with a friend regarding rifled choke tubes. From experiance when using sabots rifling needs to be used to stabalized the bullet. I suggested that he look into a rifled tube, when he went to GM to get one the shop guy said it wasnt worth the money ($30). So he didnt. Ive shot standard slugs and sabots from the same gun with a rifled tube. The sabots shot about 8-10 inches higher at 50 yd. than the slugs. Wondering if my advise was a waste or the other guy didnt know what he was talking about? I also came across a choke tube that said it was designed for sabots, whats that about?

[skeet]

For 30 bucks the rifled choke tubes are a real bargain. The extended Rem choke rifled tube that I tested with Fed Sabots gave 4 -4 1/2" groups at a 100 yds. They beat the smooth bore with sabots by a long way. I gave my daughter an 11-87 with 26" bbl and gave her a rifled choke tube to go with it. She does pretty well at deer hunting. Of course the rifled tubes don't shoot as well as fully rifled bbls but they surely don't cost what a barrel does either. Your friend got some really bad advice. Maybe the salesman wanted to sell him a fully rifled barrel. (when I was in business) I always tried to sell what the customer could afford. Best way to go... Have a couple of 870 Fully rifled bbls left now. Going on ebay this week.

[fabsroman]

NewB,

At the time of this reply, I see you have 4 posts already. However, just in case nobody has welcomed you to the board yet, welcome aboard.

Yep, Skeet is right. Usually he is right about guns. Now, just don't ask him for advice on women. LOL

When using a sabot, you need some type of rifling in the barrel. Sabots are made for rifled barrels.

Rifled slugs are made for smooth barrels with absolutely no rifling in the barrel or the choke tube. That is why the slug has rifling on it.

Now, I think Remington is coming out with some lead slugs that are made for rifled barrels and/or rifled choke tubes. Those slugs will not have the rifling built into them.

Tell your buddy to spend the $30 and try the choke tube out at the range. If he doesn't notice any difference in accuracy while shooting sabots out of it, he can sell it on e-bay, or he can get somebody he knows to sell it on e-bay. I might just start selling a couple things on e-bay myself.

Me, I use a fully rifled barrel with Federal Barnes Expander sabots and they shoot really well out to 100 yards. Last year I tried the new Remington Core-Lokt sabots in the same barrel because I did not have the time to find the Federan Barnes Expanders, and those sabots shoot terribly out of the gun, but still better than rifled slugs through a smoothbore.

[Dom]

I agree he got bad advice, as noted above. The smoothbore shotguns out there that can compete accuracy wise with sabots thru a rifled barrel are darn few and far between. I use a fully rifled barrel so have only 'heard' that the rifled choke tubes work, but I KNOW the fully rifled barrels work, Waidmannsheil, Dom.

[skeet]

Way back yonder when the sabots first came out I bought a bunch of the Smith & Wesson(made by BRI) sabots for police work. Very hard things and had to be shot out of an open choke. Used 'em in a Rem 1100 skeet gun with a weaver mounted scope. They were the best things since canned(or bottled) beer. Still have some in fact...collectible for certain. They would shoot 4 inch groups at a 100 yds...if I did my part. Got an 11-87 later with a rifled choke tube and shot some of those S&W sabots through that with the same scope set up. Cut my best groups to 2 1/2 inches. I was truly amazed. The thing that was so much better with the sabots and the rifled choke was the range increase with good accuracy. They were good for 150-175 yds under good conditions. My previous shooting at a stretch was 125..and that was only once or twice under perfect conditions. on a side note while shooting more than 400 deer(shot on crop damage permits etc) I lost only 1 deer(and it only traveled 35 yds) that hid itself in a pile of leaves in a patch of green briers. I only took shots that I knew I could make. That rifled choke was a big help. I had a fully rifled 11-87 that has taken(by 4 hunters) 91 deer...with 99 shots...and 7 shots were used to sight it in. Hopefully the fellow that has that gun now will extend the record.

[fabsroman]

Skeet, you amaze me with the numbers that you keep and I am a pretty anal person myself. I have no idea how many deer I have shot over my life time. About the only thing I do know is that my record for a single day is 8. Actually, that was a record for 2 hours and I decided to stop killing them that morning because there was only me and a 70 year old man to drag them out of the woods. That was a tough day. Pulling the trigger was the easy part.

With my guns, I can only approximate how many rounds have been through them, because sometimes I find myself borrowing shells from other people or lending shells to other people. Not to mention that I probably do not care exactly how many rounds have gone through my guns. I guess I keep track of performance based upon how many years of service I get from things.

[skeet]

Back when I was guiding I had to keep records of parties I had out and I just naturally kept a record of the birds shot..weather and any other out of the ordinary things that happened. In late October of 1978 I actually called in and shot a brant in a hedgerow blind on the farm where Pintail Point is today. Really out of the ordinary. When I started reloading in 1959 I kept a record of how many shells I reloaded and shot. In fact I still have the records. In 1960 I reloaded 77200 12 ga shotgun shells. The man that taught me to shoot paid for most of the reloading supplies and I did the loading. Most of those shells were 3-1 1/8-7 1/2 trap loads. Paper shells too. No 600 Jr back then. Had a Mec 250 single stage. I reloaded all the time. But boy did I get a chance to shoot. Also loaded some pigeon loads of 3 1/4-1 1/4-7 1/2. Just changed the shot size to shoot ducks with. #5's for them..used them for geese too...for the little bit of goosin we did. Not many geese in the area then...but 5 yrs later..oh wow!. We traveled from North Carolina to New York shootin pigeons crows blackbirds trap..whatever. I know I shot 45000 shotgun shells that yearHad a Ruger 77 in 25-06 at one time. In 4 yrs shot 3100 rounds through it..mostly at ground hogs. Way back in the early-mid 60's I had bought 100 lb of surplus 4831 from Hodgdon. That is the powder I used loading that 25-06 and a couple of 270 Winchester Rifles I had. Sold a lot too. Used the same powder in a pre 64 M-70 243 target gun I bought. Had a 6x24 Bausch and Lomb in target mounts. Killed my longest hog with that rifle. Somewhat over 600 yds. Just wasn't that ol groundhogs day. Pure luck for me. One late winter I loaded 386 boxes of 410 skeet loads. Shot them all by the middle of June. Got tennis elbow from pulling that darn handle!!

[HPBTMTCH]

NewB, i agree, your friend got bad advice. I have a fully rifled barrel on my mossberg 835 only because it says not for slugs on the shot barrel. EVERYONE else has a rifled choke tube. The 835 will out shoot the tubes, but not by much. I tell everyone try the tube first, they work.

[Catfish]

Gun Test did a report on rifled barrels and on the rifled choke tubes afew years ago. They said the the tubes were not as good as a rifled barrel, but that they were pretty close and for the price of the tubes versus the price of a barrel unless your going to be shooting alot of slugs I think you gave him real good advice.