Rifled Choke Tubes

[hand101]

Looking for some info on them. I just ordered 2 of them. Wanting to know your experience with them. Did they do good for you or did they not work for you. What loads did you shoot through them. What shot best for you. What shot worst for you.

I am looking to shoot BPI LBC's through them for accuracy results. Also maybe RB's also.

Thanks in advance. Feel free to ask questions if you do not understand what I am saying because I do not know what i am saying at times.

[centershot]

Well, I had posted the same question a while back, as have some others, and it seems there is no real consensus. They either work well with your gun/load combo or they don't. Grab a cup of coffee, some other members will be posting soon! Best of luck with your trials, and stay safe!

[hand101]

thanks centershot. i did a search but did not know what tag words to use to find posts. many were just picking up one word or the other. not both.

[nannyhammer]

I used them on a Remington 1100 that I had scoped and was shooting Remington Sluggers. Mine would keep all shots around 2-3" at 75yds as long as the operator did his part. Not match grade but plenty good enough to kill deer in the brush.

[centershot]

What nannyhammer posted seems to be typical of those who were successful shooting Foster-type rifled slugs. Logic says it should leave a pound or so of lad in the tube but that doesn't seem to happen. At least not for those who are successful. The folks who aren't successful, wellllllll..................

[bdicki]

I tried them in a Remington 11-87 and the direction of twist tightened it with every shot. Local gunsmith had a lot of business removing them. I'd check it every few shots.

[longbow]

I have seen that comment in posts before about choke tubes tightening to the point they can't be taken out. Do they not butt up against a shoulder? Either at the muzzle or the bottom of the choke tube inside the barrel? I'd figure they'd bottom out then couldn't tighten anymore.

Some have posted that they use Never Seez on the threads which makes it easy to remove the choke tube but if the tube doesn't butt up onto a shoulder then it is bottoming the threads and that would make it worse.

I have not tried one so no personal experience.

What I don't like about modern rifled choke tubes is too fast rifling twist (made for sabots) ~ should be more like 1:110" for full bore RB or square (short fat) slug and rifling too shallow. They are made to suit long skinny boolits in sabots.

I started working on one and made a short rifling machine that cuts 1:72" twist so a bit of a compromise.

Some claim good results with 0.735" RB in modern rifled choke tubes though and the one time I shot a rifled 12 ga. it was a Remington 870 with 1:35" or 1:36" twist so fairly fast but it gave quite nice groups of about 2" at 50 yards. If that held up to 100 yards that is pretty good in my view.

Kinda drifting off .50 cal. boolits in sabots here... sorry.

Longbow

[Hardcast416taylor]

The rifled choke tube that was in my 870 Wingmaster 20" slug barrel was `scary` accurate when using the old style Winchester 1 oz. lead Foster slugs. From a bench rest I could place 5 shots in a group of about 4" at 100 yds. I tried quite afew other different slugs and tried LEE cast slugs with their load data, none came near the Winchester shells accuracy.Robert

[bdicki]

The rifled choke tube that was in my 870 Wingmaster 20" slug barrel was `scary` accurate when using the old style Winchester 1 oz. lead Foster slugs. From a bench rest I could place 5 shots in a group of about 4" at 100 yds. I tried quite afew other different slugs and tried LEE cast slugs with their load data, none came near the Winchester shells accuracy.Robert

I also used the Winchester slugs in my 11-87 but with an IC choke, could never get good results with a rifled tube. Went to a rifled barrel, shot sabot slugs, eventually picked up a TC Encore 20ga Pro Hunter barrel shooting Remington Core Lokt Ultra slugs. This combo was very accurate.

[longbow]

If I could get 4" to 6" groups at 100 yards I'd be sold!

Even better if that was from a side by but that's likely asking too much.

I may have to reconsiderrifled choke tube.

[Rich56]

Using Remington 870 I had better luck with Remington Extended rifled choke than the flush tube. The gun shot well with True Ball and Breneke and Winchester rifled slugs. IIRC with a scoped shotgun, 1”’high @ 50 yds was 2-3” low. At 100yds 3-4” groups rested. Sabot rounds tried were failure

[RPRNY]

There's a YouTube channel for a couple of guys who will shoot pretty much anything anyone sends them out of a shotgun. I can't remember their channel name. Despite shooting everything from exotic Russian, French and German slugs, to stuff dudes made in their mom's basement, they are seemingly quite down to earth, regular sorts. In any event, they do a fair amount of comparison between smoothbore, rifled barrels, and rifled or "paradox" chokes.

As someone wrote very early in the thread the results vary. Unquestionably, at 1100 - 1400 fps, the choke imparts spin. Finding the slug type and assembly that the imparted spin actually stabilizes and adds accuracy to is the hard work. Works quite well with 20ga, 85grs 2fg black powder, Magtech brass, and a 63 cal ball in an H&R with 3" long Russian " paradox" choke.

[pashiner]

That youtube channel is called taofledermaus. Pretty entertaining, and the have a super high speed camera to analyze stability. Some of their experiments are, well, less than safe...to put it mildly.

[barkerwc4362]

Internal dimensions of the choke tube versus the outside diameter of the slug should be considered. If the slug is undersized it will not be spun by the rifling in the choke tube. I have experienced the same problem with creating home made sabot slug loads for rifled slug barrels. If the sabot does not grip the projectile tightly because the sabot/projectile combination is not large enough in diameter to be squeezed by the barrel accuracy is non existence. It is just like shooting an undersized cast bullet. The effect is the same.

Bill

[longbow]

There's a good point! I see several choke tubes that run 0.730" groove (Carlson's for instance) where I understand that rifled bores tend to run 0.727" and the Remington 870 I borrowed was 0.727".

0.730" groove is pretty large and rifling tends to be pretty shallow so as barkerwc4362 says, there may not be enough squeeze to spin the boolit. That and with shallow rifling maybe stripping plastic on sabots?

[centershot]

Another point to consider is that a rifled choke tube is relatively inexpensive, especially when compared to a rifled barrel. Buy a tube and run some loads through it, maybe you'll have a combo that works pretty good! Gosh, for what a tube costs you can't even buy a liter of single malt!!

[Combat Diver]

I've had a Rifled Rem Choke for my 870 for years. Still haven't used it yet as I still use my shotguns for firing shot. Do happen to live in a state with a 3 month long rifle season (at least whenever I'm home)

CD

[mehavey]

With commercial Foster loads, a rifled choke had significant effect -- but varied between brands.




Rifled choke w/ handloaded full-caliber roundball worked well.


https://thefiringline.com/forums/sho...88&postcount=1

[longbow]

Not a rifled choke tube but fully rifled Remington 870... My 0.735" RB load was very close to yours! I used a Fiocchi 2 3/4" hull, gas seal off Pacific Veralite wad, 38 grs. Blue Dot, 1/2" hard card wad, 1/8" nitro card wad(s) as required to get crimp height. Groups ran 2" at 50 yards.

Interesting to see a near identical load and nice groups from a rifled choke tube.

Was your RB soft lead? WW? Hmmm at 597 grs. must be pure or near pure lead. Mine were range scrap about WW hardness and weighed 585 grs. Okay, read your link and pure lead.

I tried a fiber wad but got better results using all hard card wad column.

I'm beginning to think I should get my gun tapped for choke tubes and give it a go. I've liked the idea of a modern Paradox gun but have been working with smoothbores so far.

The Winchester slug, Federal slug and round ball groups are pretty impressive. A couple others aren't bad either.

Did you recover any slugs to check rifling on them? My 0.735" RB's took rifling from the fully rifled barrel very well. No signs of skidding at all and 1:36" is pretty quick for a big round ball.

Longbow

[centershot]

Did you recover any slugs to check rifling on them? My 0.735" RB's took rifling from the fully rifled barrel very well. No signs of skidding at all and 1:36" is pretty quick for a big round ball.

Longbow

Back in the early days of this country (USA) there were a number of German gunsmiths building hunting rifles called Jaeger's. These were stoutly built guns of heavy caliber and, most notably, they had fast rifling twists. Jarger's were short-barrelled guns, 24-30" or thereabouts and had one complete turn of rifling within their barrel length! Today we think of 1:36 as too fast for round balls, but these gentlemen must have been on to something, Jaeger-style rifles were popular and deadly in their time!