Using slugs in a full choke bbl.

[ka0tqv]

Just picked up a Western Field MODEL 326 20GA Full Choke.What's your opinion on using Lyman Foster as cast slugs in it? (Opinions are like elbows, almost everyone has at least one).

[W.R.Buchanan]

I personally would not do this...

Those ribs on shotgun slugs from the factory are designed to collapse as they go thru a choke, contrary to the common belief that they are there to spin the slug. They are all about keeping pressure within safe limits.

The Foster type slug does not have these ribs. It is designed to be shot from a cylinder bore gun or a gun with a rifled barrel. As long as the slug is smaller than the choke all that will happen is the wad will be sheared off as it passes thru the choke, and accuracy will be non existent.

If the slug is larger than the choke then it will still go thru the hole. How much bigger it is,,, will determine how long the gun lasts.

There are videos on You-Tube of some guys shooting .454 Casull rounds thru a cheap .410 bore single shot gun. The gun continues to live after repeated attempts to kill it. However they never actually hold on to it while they are testing it. The full choke on that gun is .367 and the bullets are .454! and that round runs at 65,000 psi !!!!!

There is some safety and comfort in 20 feet of fishing line hooked to the trigger.

Randy

[Hogtamer]

Soft lead Full bore slugs will swage through the choke. The factory loads recommend IC on the box. I do have a great .58 cal round ball/wad load worked up (.570 actual) that will shoot through full choke but accuracy suffers. #3 buck out of a 20 ga FC is a killer though.

[OnHoPr]

Load for it. With the pure lead thin walled foster it should constrict easily. You may have to do some fiddling to get some type of accuracy at 50 - 75 yards but who knows it may be just fine for a 20 ga foster shooting gun. Sounds like a good ole thick brushy timber grey squirrel gun and even work on rabbits or turkey if necessary. Try to configure some type of site system for it though to help in the load testing department. You should be able to get a decent #3 or 4 buckshot load to shoot good out of it for 40 yards and under deer shooting.

[longbow]

While I haven't done it, lots of people shoot hollow base Fosters through chokes guns ~ even up to full choke.

The Foster was designed to be shot through any choke... at least if cast from soft lead. I would not use wheelweights or other hard alloy and shoot through a full choke.

Randy is right about the ribs/rifling on factory Fosters which are there both to reduce barrel friction and to collapse when the slug hits a choke. Lyman actually used to make a swaging tool to go with their Foster slug mould to swage rifling onto it. In fact I have a theory that, that is the reason they cast undersize. Mine casts 0.705" for 12 ga. If you take that slug and swage grooves into it the lead has to go somewhere so into the rifling tool groove spaces it goes. 0.010" deep rifling swaged in would make the finished slug 0.725" ~ pretty close to bore size!

More importantly though, a soft lead Foster slug that is under bore size swells to fill the bore at firing anyway so it is full bore size when it hits a choke. I have proved this to myself by shooting pure lead home cast and loaded Fosters into deep snow then recovering the slugs and what started out as 0.705" was bore size at recovery. The noses were all cocked at different angle due to uneven slug up but they were bore size. I blame the uneven slug up for poor accuracy and that is all I have ever gotten from Lyman Foster slugs... poor to very poor accuracy.

I read in a slug shooting magazine many years ago that factory Foster slugs used to be made undersize and that Federal was the first to make them bore size. Accuracy improved for Federal so the other manufacturers followed suit. I have never checked that by disecting factory ammunition though.

Having said that, you are unlikely to get best accuracy from a full choked barrel and in my experience you are unlikely to get good accuracy from a Lyman Foster slug. Most factory slug barrels (smoothbore) are cylinder or I/C choke. My Browning BPS is I/C choke and tight at 0.710".

If you do go with the Foster, cast it out of pure or at least very soft lead, not wheelweights or hard alloy.

Do not shoot bore size balls or solid bore size slugs through the choke! That most likely will cause you some grief.

Longbow