Thoughts on Full Bore Slugs and Rifled Choke tubes

I have been toying with the thought of whether some of the full-bore slugs I have which include a 660gr .735" Lyman Sabot design, a Dixie-inspired design which will cast a .737" slug three weights, an 800gr extra-large HP, an 850gr semi-HP and finally a 910gr solid, also there's a CBE Paradox mold which throws a .735" slug in a 680gr HP and a 750gr solid. I do have a slug sizing setup and have successfully regulated two 12ga paradox guns, one a William Evans Ball & Shot and the other a Westley Richards Explora in the recent past, and loaded up a bunch of ammo in paper cases for these two guns. My concern pertaining to the Carlson's 1-35" twist rifled choke tube that a buddy of mine has on his Winchester, is only with regard to the tubes wall thickness from a safety perspective and whether the torque generated by the FB slugs will lock the choke up in the barrel, whether the slugs will shoot well through the faster twist would remain to be seen, has anyone here tried FB slugs with their rifled choke? Your input would be greatly appreciated.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ull-bore-slugs

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...n-slug-18-40mm

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/goog...42j11001236j42

I'd ask Longbow, Tomme Boy, Bikerbeans & Blood Trail they do a lot of full bore slug testing.

I have no personal experience with rifled choke tube (yet) but have read of problems with torquing in very tight. Adam604 did some shooting with 0.735" RB's several years ago:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...highlight=ball

You might find some info on the Dixie Terminator too as they were quite popular and were a full bore slug of 750 grs. or thereabout. James Gates of Dixie Slugs said he wanted to reproduce the Paradox gun results but his slug was entirely different. Not bad, just different and also powders and guns have changed so same principle but different.

My take is that modern rifled barrels and rifled choke tubes have too fast a twist for round balls or square slugs. A round ball or short stubby slug want about 1:120" twist in 12 ga. yet modern rifled guns and choke tubes run 1:36" +/- but fast so they will stabilize modern sabot bullets.

Now having said that I have read contradictory info on Paradox guns and rifling twist. I assumed they would have slow round ball type twists and I am sure I have read that but I have also read that Fosbery designed ratchet rifling ran about 1:36" so the same or close to modern guns. I do not know which is true or if both are depending on gun/manufacturer.

The old style Paradox bullets were heavy but fairly short and stubby relatively speaking so I would expect that a slow twist would suit them but that is just my opinion. A couple of years ago I contacted H&H in London to ask them about Paradox guns and more specifically rifling twist but I was told that they did not know as they are making new Paradox guns with the original equipment and have not checked twist rate. While the rifled choke section of a Paradox gun is short, I would expect one could easily measure the work twist angle on the rifling machine but...?

I decided bore diameter slugs were a better bet than wad slugs so decided I would make a rifling machine to produce a twist of 1:72" as a compromise twist,,, fast for 12 ga. round ball but not too fast:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ifling+machine

However, life got in the way and making an entire barrel adaptor, muzzle brake and choke tube became a largish job that got put on hold so not completed. More recently I have resurrected that project by digging out the rifling machine, modifying the rifling head, which I made to suit 3/4" pipe, so it fits a 0.710" bored choke tube, bought a blank choke tube and barrel adaptor from Brownells. I am planning to get rifling shortly then get the barrel adaptor silver soldered to my single shot slug gun for testing of the rifled choke tube.

My goal originally was to have a modern poor man's Paradox gun that was smoothbore shooting slugs (like Brenneke) or shot with slug accuracy of hunting level for 100 yards. I failed at that! So I decided I would try with screw in choke and appropriate rifling twist for round balls and square slugs. If that worked at least I still had a smoothbore and could put a cylinder bore choke tube in... or any other choke tube, for shot.

I have always liked the idea of a Paradox gun but will never be able to afford one so this was my solution... just not achieved yet.

I like the old Kynoch/Paradox bullet design and have always wanted a mould but since I do not have a rifled gun I have not bought a mould. If my rifled choke tube works then I will buy a CBE mould or get Accurate Molds to make me one.

Also for consideration is the old Dixie Tusker slug which was a kind of lightweight Paradox bullet... similar design but 600 grs. I really liked the Tusker design but got poor accuracy from my smoothbore but the Tuslers I had to test were sized to 0.725" and my smoothbore runs 0.733" so pretty sloppy. For rifled gun I like the HB resulting in a longer slug with longer bearing length. I recently asked Tom at Accurate if he could make one and he has now posted it in his catalogue but he does not make HB pins so that has to be outsourced.

Original Tusker design:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ghlight=tusker

Tom's take which is slightly different due to tooling:

http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_...73-740TN-D.png

Actual weight with HB pin would be 600 grs. and solid would be 740 grs.

If I get a rifled barrel or my rifled choke tube works I will be buying a mould for sure!

I know CBE has sold Paradox moulds so I'd figure they have been shot through fully rifled guns and I'd suspect someone has shot them through rifled choke tube but I have not read any reports of either.

I do have a copy of Ross Seyfried's article about his quest to obtain accuracy with his Paradox gun which he did in the end using an original mould and bullet design.

That's about all I've got. I hope there is something useful there.

Longbow

z375: I've shot powder coated round balls that mic .737 through a Carlson rifled choke with out problems. (Savage- Stevens 12ga. break barrel) Gp

Do not fire a hard cast, full bore slug through a rifled choke tube!

In early testing, James Gates tried that with the full bore, hard cast Tusker and promptly locked the choke tube in! Shotgun barrel smith, Mike Orlen, had to use a lathe to back the tube out.

Unlike soft lead slugs or plastic encased sabot slugs, the hard cast slugs torque the tubes in ultra tight. Even with soft lead and sabot slugs, it is best to unscrew the rifled tube every few rounds to prevent over tightening the rifled choke tube. Rifled choke tubes are set up to self tighten when any type of shotgun shell is fired through them - better than self loosening!

I have no idea whether or not a fullbore hard cast slug will lock a choke tube in place. I do suspect that accelerating a large fullbore slug to near muzzle velocity and then trying to make it spin very rapidily is not going to produce an accurate result. I think the rifling is more likely to shave off the outer few thousandths of your FB slug instead of imparting an accurate spin.

BB

I never did any 12ga. I did 20ga. As long as I used soft lead as was mentioned I never had any problems. I also used a Colonial Arms extended choke tube. I took it out every time I got home and lubed it up. It never had a chance to get stuck. That is where everyone gets in trouble. 1) They screw it in and forget about it. 2) they do not lube it.

I did shoot some slugs out of WW that were water dropped and I did not notice and difference in the amount of force to remove the choke on the gun I was using. But, like I said I kept up on the choke so yours may not be so easy to remove.

I have had experience with Remington rifled choke tubes. They do lock up pretty tight after several rounds, at least mine does. Not impossible to get loose with the supplied tube wrench, but quite a PITA. I think putting never seize on the threads helps a little.

The flush tubes are going to stick. The extended tubes will too, but they are MUCH easier to just put a strap wrench or a pipe wrench if you have to to get them off. Heck I have had the regular tubes freeze shooting large steel shot. I went to extended tubes on them as well and never had a problem again. I will tell you that the flush mount tubes will split shooting the copper solid slugs. Don't know if it was the first generation of the Remington Solids or what, but the gun shop here had 6 different chokes that split from shooting them.

I shot tons of the Lyman 12 and 20 sabots also with the rifled chokes. Some guns they work and some they do not. This was through my own testing before ever coming onto this board.

I have an 870 Rem. 12 gauge with a slug barrel that has a rifled choke tube at the end of a smooth barrel, 20". The only slugs that I`ll put thru this choke are the 1 oz. 2 3/4" Foster style Winchester factory ammo. With a 4X scope and shooting from a bench I regularly get 4" groups with 5 shots at 100 yds. and at $4.00 per box of 5 it`s a deal.Robert

I don't have a shotgun with screw in choke tubes so no experience there. Everything I have has fixed chokes.

I bought a barrel adaptor and Mossberg choke tubes from Brownells to put onto my single shot slug gun to try my home rifled choke tube (in progress). I was shocked to see how thin the walls are on the barrel adaptor, which is a silver solder on unit, and also how thin the choke tubes are. I bought a blank choke tube then bored it to 0.710" with the intent of rifling 0.010" deep with slow twist rifling.

My only other experience was with an old Pachmayr Power Pac choke system which was an add on like the Cutts Compensator. Not only was the barrel adaptor beefy but so were the choke tubes.

I am not surprised that these new style choke tubes can be a problem with slugs. I'd also be worried about damaging the barrel if the gun got dropped especially if it fell over or got knocked on the muzzle when a choke tube was removed. There is so little barrel wall left it would dent real easy I'm sure.

Longbow

The rifled choke tube is just a modern version of the Paradox System invented by one of the big English Gun Makers before 1900.

When I was 12 (1962) I got a Guns and Ammo Magazine that had an article about a guy who had an Evans 8 bore double gun with the paradox rifling in the last 2" of the bore. The Evan's guns were the economy models of these guns as opposed to H&H and other high end makers of the time. This gun fired 8 gauge round balls and 1250 gr slugs with about 8 drams of Black Powder. Luckily the gun weighed about 15 lbs so it could be shot, however it was a 50 yard gun on it's best day. It was grouping right at 2" at 50 yards from both barrels with the slugs and a little more with Balls. The article stated that the original purpose of these guns was to be able to shoot shot, balls and slugs, to have one gun cover everything a hunter might run into. IE: the "Economy Minded Hunter" who slummed it in 3rd class to Africa or perhaps got sent there with the Army. It did come with bullet and ball moulds and a supply of Brass cases to load as you saw fit.

Since this was my only gun magazine at that time because Mom would only buy me 1 about every 6 months, I read that article about 400 times. I do remember most of it. Just so you know, I was a Gun Nut long before I was 12. I had a Daisy Pop gun that I killed more than one Elephant on TV with.

Point of all this being,,, there is very little new in the gun world, and one point we should all be aware of is that everything we are trying has probably been done hundreds of times in the past by guys just like us. Our results can be pretty good, but it is doubtful they will be any significant amount better than what was done 100 or so years ago. I mean 2" from an 8 bore double gun with 1250 gr slugs is as good or better than anything we've done here. Once again practical accuracy does reign supreme and a 12 ga slug will take down just about anything it hits. I am still trying to answer the question about Smooth Bores with Chokes and Rifled slugs. more on this on my A5 barrel thread.

You'd think that with the guns and ammunition and components we have available now we should be able to shoot everything thru the same hole. However we find that is generally not the case, and even if someone did it once, they'd probably be hard pressed to do it twice.

The limiting factors appear to me to be the slugs themselves.

Randy

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Originally Posted by z375

I have been toying with the thought of whether some of the full-bore slugs I have which include a 660gr .735" Lyman Sabot design, a Dixie-inspired design which will cast a .737" slug three weights, an 800gr extra-large HP, an 850gr semi-HP and finally a 910gr solid, also there's a CBE Paradox mold which throws a .735" slug in a 680gr HP and a 750gr solid. I do have a slug sizing setup and have successfully regulated two 12ga paradox guns, one a William Evans Ball & Shot and the other a Westley Richards Explora in the recent past, and loaded up a bunch of ammo in paper cases for these two guns. My concern pertaining to the Carlson's 1-35" twist rifled choke tube that a buddy of mine has on his Winchester, is only with regard to the tubes wall thickness from a safety perspective and whether the torque generated by the FB slugs will lock the choke up in the barrel, whether the slugs will shoot well through the faster twist would remain to be seen, has anyone here tried FB slugs with their rifled choke? Your input would be greatly appreciated.

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Sorry to resurrect and old thread but could you please post some pictures of your slug swaging set up?

saw an interesting hickock45 video the other day he was shooting a smooth bore shotgun 200 yards with some factory loaded slugs and was impressively on target.
ive loaded home cast and loaded slugs and never thought of even trying them past 75 or so yards. I guess since ive always been in states where I can hunt with just about any kind of gun I want I never did a whole lot with slugs