Honing a Choke

[Scrounger]

I always wanted a 'coach gun' and recently scratch that itch; I now have a 12 gauge Stoeger/IGA with 18-1/2" barrels. But they are choked, modified and improved cylinder. It's intended use is hand-thrown clay pigeons in the desert and intruders at very short range. Modified is a less than ideal choice for that kind of work. (But it will suffice if I don't change it) I would like to hone out the chokes to about 'skeet' and 'improved cylinder'. My first thought was a dozen or so slugs with valve grinding compound on them. But slugs are somewhat less than barrel diameter (nominal diameter is .729") So any of you Buckshot type gunsmiths have any other ideas, so I can do this without a lathe or other specialized tools?

[David R]

I have always used an adjustable reamer. They are in the 3rd drawer of my dads tool box. Every 20 guage gun that I have owned, I have reamed them out at least a little. Just taking that last little bit makes for more even patterns. You do not need anything else fancy to do the job.

David

[slughammer]

Just Thursday I opened a .355 size die to .359. I used 2" x 3" strips of 220grit automotive paper held on a 1/4" rod with a piece of duct tape. I used a drill motor and held the die in a gloved hand. Paper only takes off about .0005 before it loads up and stops cutting, then its time to measure the die and replace the paper.

Hardest part I see is alignment, the die was hand held so it would self align with the drill rod. Perhaps a 1/2" drill rod from the breach end of the shot gun.

How many thousandths do you need to take out?

[Mel-4857]

Hi Scrounger, in some automotive supply stores you can find a brake cylinder hone that will collapse to about half an inch that will do the job. Spin it with a drill and lots of cutting oil. Doesn't cut real fast because stones are fairly fine.I've seen them used to clean up barrels with light pitting by using a drill bit extension . Mel

[Denver]

Scrounger;

Is this a new or used gun? I wasn't aware that the Stoeger coach guns had less than 20 inch barrels. If it's a used gun and the barrels are 18 1/2 inches, someone may have shortened it and it is now cylinder bore. Just a thought.

Ron

[MOA Shooter]

Wrap that slug with a few layers of masking tape evenly to build it up.

Coat the affected tight area with the lapping agent of choice.

Fire over it with above slugs at low speeds.

Check after a few shots for increase of dia.

Is that bore chrone lined?


MOA.

[swheeler]

Art; I wouldn't do anything until I patterned the barrels with the ammo I was going to shoot. You may verywell find that they pattern nowhere near IC or mod. If you reload your own ammo you can change patterns some by wad or powder choice, and pattern densities can be altered greatly by shot hardness, powder choice, and shot cups, use of a spreader insert, etc. Just my 2 cents.
Scooter

[Willbird]

Also going to handloads with no protective shot cup of any kind, just nitro cards and felt wads will generally pattern more open.

You can also use brass shells while you are at it for fun.

Bill

[Newtire]

Swheeler,
Funny how the thread goes from this to that but used to make those spreader loads using two pices of cardboard slit in the middle so it made four lengthwise compartments. These worked better than the shot column divided by nitro cards. Used them to harvest quite a few cottontails using my Dad's M-12 full choke. Turned it into a nice "Imp. cyl". Now, I see they sell these commercially.

[swheeler]

Newtire; yes the spreaders work, I've used the BP inserts. A man could spend a couple lifetimes testing loads in just one gauge shotgun and still not scratch the surface! I still stumble onto various partial used bacgs of wads, inserts, cards, and whatnot ,stashed in various locations about the place-huh-ebaysomeday?