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.
https://i.imgur.com/shAb8Aq.jpg

[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!!:shock:

[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.

https://s1.postimg.org/1zuo74wsjz/REM_870_Express_Tactical_A-_TAC_Rifled_Choke3_sm.jpg


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

https://s1.postimg.org/8dod1csmhr/REM_870_Tactical_Bess_Round_Ball_sm.jpg
https://thefiringline.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6522088&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!

[longbow]

Not arguing that fast twist can't work for round ball just that it is not necessary to stabilize large round balls.

The Jaegers were fully rifled, shooting patched balls (or in the very early days naked full bore balls seated with a mallet) so the ball was fully engaged with rifling from breech to muzzle where with a rifled choke tube (or Paradox rifling in the last 3" or so of the bore) the ball is traveling at full velocity before it engages the rifling. The faster the rifling twist the more likely the ball is to strip when it hits the rifling so it makes sense (to me anyway) to use the slowest twist suitable for the projectile being used and a 0.729" ball only needs about 1:110" twist to stabilize it.

Having said that, it is unclear to me what rifling twist the old Paradox guns used. I have read of both quite fast twists like 1:36" to typical slow twists of 1:100"+ used in the bore guns. However, even if faster twists were used in the Paradox guns the Fosbery ratchet rifling was aggressive being both deep and choked. All the modern rifled choke tubes I've seen have quite shallow rifling and are not choked.

Longbow

[centershot]

Longbow, of the tubes you have examined, which had the deepest rifling?

[longbow]

To be honest, I haven't handled any rifled choke tubes, just basing the comment on shallow rifling based on photos from several suppliers and comments I have read that rifling is shallow. So I am making some assumptions on rifling depth. Also thinking it is similar to modern rifled shotguns which is relatively shallow.

The old Paradox guns apparently had quite deep rifling described as "aggressive" and "deep" implying it is much deeper than regular rifles or bore guns would have. There is an add on James D. Julia for an H&H Paradox gun with 0.028" bore constrictions so 0.014" deep rifling assuming the grooves are cut straight and not on the choke angle.

https://jamesdjulia.com/item/lot-3136-rare-holland-and-holland-cased-paradox-bore-hammer-double-barrel-shotgun-32763/

A Ross Seyfried article states that his Paradox gun had 0.030" constriction at the grooves and 0.050" constriction at the lands so 0.010" deep rifling with choke so constant squeeze down through the rifling and from that description I'm guessing the grooves were cut at the choke angle or that the whole bore was constricted by 0.030" with 0.010" deep grooves?

Nothing against shallow rifling. I had a Marlin 1895 in ,45-70 with microgroove rifling and have a Marlin 1894 in .44 mag with microgroove rifling that both shoot cast boolits well.

I just think that "deep" rifling for a rifled choke tube will have a better chance or grabbing and holding a slug than shallow rifling. Again, just my opinion.

It would be nice to get to examine a Paradox gun to determine rifling depth and twist rate though it may have varied by manufacturer some as Paradox was the H&H version but Greener and others made similar guns. All too expensive for me though!

One day I will finish my rifled choke tube which is started but stalled out currently. My rifling machine is set up to cut 1:72" twist but so far I have only rifled a short chunk of 3/4" pipe to test it. The plan is to make a rifled choke tube with deep wide grooves at 0.010" minimum and likely deeper. I'll get it done one day... I hope!

Longbow

[longbow]

Just got a response from Hastings. Their rifled choke tubes have 0.005" deep rifling so not very deep at all.

[centershot]

Five-thousandths!!! Eeek!!! With rifling that shallow it's a wonder some of these guys are getting the groups that they are!

[longbow]

Well especially since the groove diameter is 0.730".

In my case my single shot runs about 0.733" so a slug that fills that bore would have something to grip but for someone at the othe rend of the spectrum with smack on 0.729" or small as some European guns apparently are then you'd be lucky if the slugs didn't strip.

Like I said, the old Paradox guns had deep choked rifling. I'm not sure if a regular choke was rifled so lands choked but grooves ran parallel to the bore or if rifling was cut on the choke angle so both lands and grooves were chokes... that's how I read the info Ross Seyfried wrote about but I'd have to think that it would be difficult to cut rifling like that.

Oddly, I do not find much info on the internet regarding Paradox guns or bore guns for that matter and I think they were more common.

I should post some questions on double guns or nitro express forums. I'm sure someone has gun(s) that can be checked for details like that.

Longbow

[centershot]

The thing I don't understand about paradox guns is this: How were they able to give any kind of useful shot pattern? Wouldn't the rifling mess it up? I know they weren't using the plastic wads that we do today, but still.......

[Cap'n Morgan]

The thing I don't understand about paradox guns is this: How were they able to give any kind of useful shot pattern? Wouldn't the rifling mess it up? I know they weren't using the plastic wads that we do today, but still.......

The rifled portion of the barrel is too short to induce rotation to a load of shot. I shot quite a few rats with a 4" barrel .22 revolver with shot cartridges. The gun would throw a nice pattern but when shot in a .22 rifle the pattern would be doughnut shaped.

[longbow]

I also got a response from Carlsons. Their rifling is 0.010" deep which is a bit more like it but still relatively shallow when you consider a slug whacking into it at about 1400 FPS.

Yeah, what Cap'n Morgan says. The Paradox guns were supposed to produce shot patterns of about modified, though from what I have read they were actually about full choke equivalent at the muzzle. Likely the ratchet rifling was not as disruptive to the shot as wide lands and grooves would be plus as said, no plastic wads and only the outside of the pattern would see the rifling.

More speculation on my part. However, H&H, Greener and others made similar guns in both 12 and 20 ga. (and possibly others) so they must had had some success and Ross Seyfried wrote that his Paradox gun performed as H&H advertised. Paradox guns are available new from H&H by the way and they don't come cheap! The Dallas gunroom has a "pre-owned" Paradox gun for $105,000.00 US. Run on over there before they sell it if you want one. I would if I had the money.

If I spent $105,000.00 on a gun I'd like it to shoot well. Hah! My budget is like 0.5% of that though. Well, I might be able to swing 1% for a new gun... a "nice" one anyway.

Longbow

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I also got a response from Carlsons. Their rifling is 0.010" deep which is a bit more like it but still relatively shallow when you consider a slug whacking into it at about 1400 FPS.

Yeah, what Cap'n Morgan says. The Paradox guns were supposed to produce shot patterns of about modified, though from what I have read they were actually about full choke equivalent at the muzzle. Likely the ratchet rifling was not as disruptive to the shot as wide lands and grooves would be plus as said, no plastic wads and only the outside of the pattern would see the rifling.

More speculation on my part. However, H&H, Greener and others made similar guns in both 12 and 20 ga. (and possibly others) so they must had had some success and Ross Seyfried wrote that his Paradox gun performed as H&H advertised. Paradox guns are available new from H&H by the way and they don't come cheap! The Dallas gunroom has a "pre-owned" Paradox gun for $105,000.00 US. Run on over there before they sell it if you want one. I would if I had the money.

If I spent $105,000.00 on a gun I'd like it to shoot well. Hah! My budget is like 0.5% of that though. Well, I might be able to swing 1% for a new gun... a "nice" one anyway.

Longbow

I would think that if you walk over there, you would get it. I am sure you can get Paradox guns, or the "jungle guns" etc. of their competitors, for a lot less than this.

Rifling wasn't well understood in the early eighteenth century, and in Germany the jaeger units of the time were recruited from gamekeepers, foresters etc., and their weapons were the product of gunsmith technology rather than government research. That fast rifling worked a whole lot better than the smoothbore musket, but is most unlikely to have been as good with round ball as something much slower. I don't believe there is any record of the Prussians turning out technologically superior to Napoleon's troops, who scarcely used rifles at all.

The conical bullets used in the Paradox were short and round-nosed, and usually lightened by a large groove. They would certainly have performed well with much slower rifling than the fast twist of the Paradox gun - if that rifling had run all the way from chamber to muzzle. I suspect that there was some slippage on contacting the rifled section - not stripping, but each groove engraved in the bullet taking on a waisted shape. That would reduce the amount of spin imparted.

As to shot pattern, they were about equivalent to a full choke, concentrating the pattern, but centrifugal force part-way unconcentrated it, producing a pretty fair general-purpose shotgun. There must surely have been a lot of flyers, shot deformed by the rifling and therefore flying wildly. It might perhaps not have been as bad deformation as you would get by forcing the pellets by full peak pressure, a half-inch or so ahead of the cartridge case.

Centrifugal force, though, increases with the radius of the circle described. Pellets in the centre of the charge won't be subject to that force at all, and those near it much less so than these on the outside. The undeformed pellets shouldn't form a very doughnut-shaped pattern.

I would think that the best lubricant for choke tubes would be the old-fashioned case sizing lube - the kind they can say isn't just STP oil treatment by adding some unnecessary ingredient and keeping their fingers crossed behind their backs. It really is amazingly tenacious stuff, especially when you don't want it to be.

[longbow]

BIS:

Yes, you are probably right. Apparently once the H&H patent expired many of the big gunmakers produced similar guns and I am sure there must have been some gunmakers to common folk that made budget "Paradox" guns. H&H is certainly a fine gunmaker and their prices reflect that. I have to say though that in my searches I have not found a "budget" Paradox gun.

I would like to know what the rifling twist was in Paradox, Explora or whatever. It may have varied from maker to maker as well.

There are some folks on nitroexpress and doublegunshop that have Paradox or similar guns. I should post the question there. It will be hard to determine with such a short rifled section. I would think a slug with a degree wheel attached would be the easiest if rifling twist isn't published anywhere.

I do have to think that the slower the twist, the less effect defects would have on accuracy too. Bore size slugs are big lumps of lead at large diameter so I have to think spinning them faster than they need for stability would be detrimental to good accuracy. If 1:110" is good then 1:36" is much faster than needed. It may take a good bench rest session with a fast twist gun and slow twist gun to prove it one way or another but not only difficult (just where does one buy a 12 ga. with 1:110" twist barrel anyway?) but the recoil would be brutal after shooting several groups from each barrel.

Having shot 0.735" RB's through a fully rifled barrel with 1:36" twist I can say they did not strip and accuracy was good but would they shoot better through slower twist? I don't know.

The quest continues.

Longbow

[Ballistics in Scotland]

BIS:

Yes, you are probably right. Apparently once the H&H patent expired many of the big gunmakers produced similar guns and I am sure there must have been some gunmakers to common folk that made budget "Paradox" guns. H&H is certainly a fine gunmaker and their prices reflect that. I have to say though that in my searches I have not found a "budget" Paradox gun.

Don't forget that there has been a great change in the affordability of best quality guns. Best grade British-made guns have become beyond the means, when new, of thousands who, in the same walks of life, could have bought them in earlier times, and the same makers' more basic grades have become more or less extinct in current production. It was part of the same little revolution that made communism a non-starter in the US - giving the skilled manual worker a larger slice of the cake, and treating him with respect. There are more ways than one in which guns can lead social change.

Then in 1937 rifled firearms became subject to individual licencing, and it was generally accepted that that included those even rifled just a little bit. I suspect that a lot were bored out as shotguns. Belgium didn't make many Paradox guns, possibly because they had few colonies, and King Leopold's personal Belgian colony wasn't the sort of place a self-respecting Belgian would want to be seen dead in. Their most prosperous export trade seems to have been South America, but open-country areas like Argentina and Paraguay.

I don't really have much use for slugs in a breechloading shotgun. They are illegal for deer, except for exemptions for farmers protecting crops etc., and we have a distinct shortage of anything between fox and deer size, or over. But if I did, I think round ball and an all-rifled barrel, with slow twist, is the one I would prefer to bet on. It sounds like a good case for powder coating or the once-fashionable carnauba wax and molybdenum disulphide treatment. (if a grease cookie is used, it ought to be concave to match the ball, and protected from sticking to it.)

I think very shallow rifling would work with the .735 ball in a rifled .729 tube (and there is a product worth of your rifling machine!) Mr. Metford found that "rifling" done with coarse emery on a lead lap would spin a bullet for a while, although erosion demands something a bit deeper. I wonder if a screw-tightened device to emboss the rifling with small ball-bearings would work?

I'd be inclined to go for a single-shot 12ga., which generally has a heavy barrel to minimise recoil. Just the other day I was reading one of our great shotgun experts of the 60s, Gough Thomas Garwood, aka Gough Thomas, who devised a method of measuring the fast-handling qualities of shotguns, in terms of the moment of inertia. You suspend a gun by the centre of gravity, deflect it, and time how quickly and often it oscillates before coming to rest. Put simply, it measures how far into the ends of the gun the weight is.

He found that the Greener GP Martini, the Browning 2-shot automatic when the alloy barrel was fitted, and the American bolt-actions when they weren't the mammoth ones designed to put the muzzle closest to geese, were as good as the best double guns, and cheap factory doubles were nowhere near as good. The GP, which is cheap here, would be my choice, with plenty of metal in the barrel, and a lot more strength than you need for birdshot cartridges.

The eternal curse of slug shotguns is the hockeystick trajectory, with groups much more than twice as big at 100 yards as they are at 50. That is the main reason to want fast multiple shots. Beat that problem, for conventional woodland distances, and you are level with the single-shot rifle.

[lakeparkv8]

Savage model 212 &220 shotguns come with barrel rifling. They are designed for slugs. As far as choke tubes goes, we have been shooting rifled chokes for years with # 9 birdshot. We shoot card shoots 56 - 90+ feet at a variety of paper targets. A great person to talk to about these are straight from a builder of them. Contact William Lambert, he is owner/builder at Sumtoy Custom.
http://sumtoycustoms.com/index.php/contact-us

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Savage model 212 &220 shotguns come with barrel rifling. They are designed for slugs. As far as choke tubes goes, we have been shooting rifled chokes for years with # 9 birdshot. We shoot card shoots 56 - 90+ feet at a variety of paper targets. A great person to talk to about these are straight from a builder of them. Contact William Lambert, he is owner/builder at Sumtoy Custom.
http://sumtoycustoms.com/index.php/contact-us

The French are given to eating birds of kinds we just listen to, and for that ranges are often short. Even no.9 shot would have a tendency to produce songbird puree at those distances, which may be why they sometimes use rifled bore or choke for that purpose. It might be that guns, barrels or barrel blanks suitable for slug use are, as a result, available from companies like Verney Carron.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

The rifled portion of the barrel is too short to induce rotation to a load of shot. I shot quite a few rats with a 4" barrel .22 revolver with shot cartridges. The gun would throw a nice pattern but when shot in a .22 rifle the pattern would be doughnut shaped.

A .22 rimfire shotshell puts a lot of its pellets on the outside. I think the doughnut pattern you describe with the rifle was more likely due to deformed pellets than centrifugal force, and it was obscured by the higher terminal pressure of the revolver, like any other extreme sawn-off shotgun, producing a blown pattern. If everything was working like a larger shotgun, it would probably produce a spread of an inch and a half or so per yard of range like a larger shotgun. What you did get was probably better for rats at close range.

[longbow]

BIS:

I have very limited experience with rifled shotgun as they are not common where I am because there are no shotgun only hunting zones so the only interest comes from wackos like myself who like big bore guns and are fascinated for no apparent reason by shotguns and slugs.

I have shot 0.735" RB's through a fully rifled Remington 870 that I borrowed from a local guy who deal in second hand guns and markets at gun shows as a hobby/business. The rifling was not deep at IIRC about 0.005". If memory serves the groove diameter was 0.727" and land diameter was 0.717". Twist was typical Remington at 1:36" or maybe 1:35" whatever is standard but very fast for a full bore 12 ga. ball. Accuracy to 50 yards was very good but I did not shoot further for a few reasons but primarily due to being recoiled almost senseless after shooting 35 rounds off the bench through both my smoothbore single shot and the rifled Remington 870 after having shot heavy loads in my Marlin 1894 (for a small gun and relatively small cartridge the .44 mag does recoil some!).

Recovered balls showed good rifling engraving and no signs of stripping so certainly in a fully rifled barrel that worked just fine even if twist was faster than required.

Unfortunately my rifling machine will only rifle to about 6" long in its present form. A longer worm in the nut and of course a longer bed would fix that but at present 6" is it. I could certainly rifle a full choke out so grooves matched bore diameter.

I am currently rethinking my rifled choke tube approach of making a Power Pac clone with rifled tube to possibly making a tapped barrel adapter to silver solder to the shotgun barrel then buy a blank choke tube then bore and rifled that. That would also allow me to buy after market choke tubes as well which my Power Pac clone would not.

I'll get it done one day.

Longbow

[Hogtamer]

Leadhead 500 had some impressive .735 RB loads.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?264465-735-Round-Ball-and-H-amp-R-Ultra-Slug-Hunter

[longbow]

Hal:

I've got to say you have an amazing memory! You keep posting links to threads I've seen but forgotten!

LH did get some very good groups with the 0.735" RB's.

Tom (trg3) said his success came using 0.690" RB's in shot cups with two opposing petals cut off in a rifled gun ( H&R Ultra slugger iirc). Makes one of wonder but he said thatvwirked for him.

My biggest fear with full bore hard (OR non-choke friendly slugs or balls is the possibility of them winding up in a choked gun.

Maybe I am too worried but I'd prefer choke friendly slug like Brenneke. Otherwise the good 'ol 0.735" RB is at the top of my list.

Wad slugs or 0.678" RB's"should" squish through a full choke but I havent tried it to be sure. I have an old side by with bulged barrel that may be the test gun for this.

Longbow

[Ballistics in Scotland]

BIS:

I have very limited experience with rifled shotgun as they are not common where I am because there are no shotgun only hunting zones so the only interest comes from wackos like myself...

I know how it is.

Just from memory, that sounds very much like the bore dimensions of the Hastings barrel blank, which they have made by Verney Carron. I agree that that sounds a bit faster in twist than is desirable, but their 20ga, the only blank they currently list, is worse, at 26in. It is possible that the design is primarily intended for rifled choke tubes, which Hastings do with a six inch length.

http://www.hastingsdistribution.com/index.php?l=product_list&c=1

Heavy slug loads could probably benefit from a recoil reduction device. The ones containing mercury can fit in a magazine tube (reducing its capacity, but how many shots do you really need unless a flock of deer fly over?) or a stock drawbolt hole, but I would put most trust in the forward location. I don't know if some kind of inertial movement of the mercury is significant, but if you compare a seven-pound gun with a six-pound one, I doubt if a solid lead plug would be bad.




I'll get it done one day.

I know how that is too.

[Cap'n Morgan]

BIS:

I can't remember the finer details regarding my sub-caliber shotgun experience.
The rat/revolver hunting mostly took place in a grain loft; You sneaked quietly into the pitch-black loft, clutching your flashlight & gun in a weaver-stance, then you switched on the flashlight and tried to nail one of the rats when they scurried for cover. The shot was about #12 and quite effective within 10 to 15 feet.

We also used 9mm Flobert shot cartridges in smooth bore single-shot guns, but even though they had a much larger payload compared to the tiny .22, they didn't seem to be anymore deadly on rats or sparrows - perhaps because they carried too large a shot size (#7 and #9) to produce a decent pattern.

As for doughnut pattern; I once tried a small load of #12 shot - with a tuft of tissue paper for wad - in my .177 Diana air gun. It gave the nicest little doughnut-shaped pattern without a single pellet in the center.

[longbow]

Many years ago I worked on a mushroom farm and we had a rat problem. The rats get into the mushroom beds and tunnel eating grain that is added to supplement the mushroom manure.

I managed to shoot a rat twice with the .22 LR shotshell from a rifle at close range and while the impact knocked the rat down it didn't kill it or keep it down. The foreman had a .22 mag. handgun with shotshells and that had a much better effect on the rat.

I didn't take any apart but it appeared that the .22 mag. had a bigger payload of heavier shot than the regular .22 LR. It was certainly much more effective that is for sure!

I should have checked patterns but didn't. I haven't seen shotshells for .22 or .22 mag. locally but will keep my eyes open as I have both .22 LR handgun and rifle and .22 mag. handgun. Yet another test I'll get around to eventually.

Well, the rifled choke tube hasn't seen any progress but I am in the midst of making a hammer sizing die to try sizing Lee slugs to about 0.665" or close. The goal being to remove the taper so they can be paper patched back up to bore snug fit into shotcup/bore as some of my home made slugs are designed for. So far that has shown good results and I have several home made slugs loaded up to tes. Now to add some Lee's both as cast and sized for comparison. I find the tape is far in excess of the taper on shotcup petals.

My Lee 1 oz. slugs run 0.685" nose and 0.673" at the skirt and the 7/8 oz. runs 0.682" at the nose and 0.667" at skirt. I checked a couple of each and they were very close and very round. Both moulds cast very well. The 1 oz. mould i sold style and needed a bit of deburring but now drops nice slugs easily. The 7/8 oz. is new style and also casts well but takes a couple of good taps on the hinge bolt to drop slugs. I'll likely give the core pin a bit of deburring but it isn't bad.

I have several different designed slugs in both full bore and wad slugs to try and part of the goal is so find slugs I want to test further in rifled gun and/or rifled choke tube. One day I will get a rifled choke tube of my design made!

Two totally different topics in that post! Well, I haven't even finished my morning coffee yet so thought processes are a little iffy!

Longbow

[Ballistics in Scotland]

BIS:

I can't remember the finer details regarding my sub-caliber shotgun experience.
The rat/revolver hunting mostly took place in a grain loft; You sneaked quietly into the pitch-black loft, clutching your flashlight & gun in a weaver-stance, then you switched on the flashlight and tried to nail one of the rats when they scurried for cover. The shot was about #12 and quite effective within 10 to 15 feet.

We also used 9mm Flobert shot cartridges in smooth bore single-shot guns, but even though they had a much larger payload compared to the tiny .22, they didn't seem to be anymore deadly on rats or sparrows - perhaps because they carried too large a shot size (#7 and #9) to produce a decent pattern.

As for doughnut pattern; I once tried a small load of #12 shot - with a tuft of tissue paper for wad - in my .177 Diana air gun. It gave the nicest little doughnut-shaped pattern without a single pellet in the center.

The 9mm rimfire Webley was the first gun I ever owned without air coming into it, and delivered rather good patterns despite having only a single cardboard cup wad. It was quite adequate for semi-urban pigeons at fifteen or so yards, as long as you didn't have any quixotic objection to shooting sitters. The .22 (and they made this in smoothbore too) should be just as good in the conditions you describe, and even less likely to cause structural damage.

I might find another someday. I have several pounds of primed but never loaded Fiocchi cases which I bought at auction, when the Birmingham Gun Barrel Proof House decided they were never likely to prove that many 9mm. shotguns. I intended them for .32 rimfire conversion (which I established can be done), but they would be a cheap route to shooting what is, for its size, a fairly expensive gun to feed.

I've seen it said on various threads (which doesn't surprise me) that it can be safe and nearly as accurate a true cylinder to shoot slugs from a choke barrel, as long as they will pass through without undue effort. But the reason choke tightens up the pattern is that it imparts an inward movement to the shot. It occurs to me that the same inward movement imparted to a ball which isn't central in the bore, would be a great source of inaccuracy (although eccentricity of mass, say by a bubble in a cast slug, isn't as harmful as with a rifle.)

It seems a good idea, therefore, to use some sort of hard wad with an accurately centred depression forming most of a ball-sized hemisphere, to make sure the ball is concentric with the choke.

The reason the choke must be short with birdshot, is that it stops doing anything when that inward movement ceases. There has to be only about 5/8in. or so of a parallel reduced bore after the choke. For this reason I think those long Hastings rifled choke tubes would disperse the shot by centrifugal action, but wouldn't concentrate it as a choke.

I think the doughnut airgun pattern, another thing the shooting community has inadequately tested by experimentation, was most likely caused by the tissue plug blowing through the pattern. The smaller the shot, the more likely this is to happen, as they slow down very fast.

Now that we have established that digression is OK, another item in my white elephant collection is a large container of never loaded but primed .22 Winchester-Western shotshell cases, about an inch in length. I bought those on eBay from the United States, and the seller pledged his word that he had boiled out the primer composition. I meant them for jacked bullet swaging, since Corbin said the only obstacle to accuracy as good as good can be, is the primer indentation in fired cases. I decided to anneal the first few on a cooker ring, and spilt some coffee when they went off with sharp cracks. Someday they might be used for a .20 inside-primed experiment. I always thought it a shame that the .22LR won out over the .22WRF, which didn't equal it for accuracy, but might if it had had the same amount of development work.

[longbow]

I am with you on the .22 mag. it is actually a pretty impressive performer for its size. If the price wasn't so high (not unaffordable but much higher than .22 LR) I'd be inclined to get a rifle in .22 mag. I have a Ruger Single Six convertible with .22 mag. cylinder and from a handgun the .22 mag is pretty impressive.

And just to put something sort of on topic in this post... much better with shot than .22 LR. Not sure if .22 mag smoothbores have ever been made. That should solve donut patterns.

But of course then if we moved up to .38 Special or .357 mag. (or similar size cartridges) with shot you'd have a fairly effective small bore shotgun and might even be a decent slug shooter. Kind of a smoothbore rook rifle? Yeah, yeah... "smoothbore/rifle".

So there's a question for you BIS... rook rifles seemed to be fairly common in the UK but were there small bore shotguns/smoothbore using smaller than .410 brass cartridges? Seems to me they could be quite good for shot and round ball at moderate ranges.

My uncle used to have a Marble's Game Getter which was a handgun with folding rifle stock in over/under .22/.44 smoothbore which took .44 WCF shot, .44 round ball and .44 XL shot loads. I'd have thought things like that would have been useful in the UK and Europe... at least the cartridges and in rifle length if handguns were an issue. Unfortunately my uncle "disposed" of it many years ago. I'd have loved to get that one.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

The .410, despite its more modern-sounding name, is about as old as any shotgun cartridge, although it remained fairly limited in appeal until the 2in. cartridge was lengthened to 2½in. (It was several decades before I learned why the 2½in. were hard to chamber in a friend's .410, borrowed in childhood, but it did me no harm.) It was considered a pest control or poacher's gun, and the market was dominated by the single barrelled Belgian type, which were rather good for their purpose. It was quite rare for the wealthy to indulge junior with a quality British-built double .410.

Brass cases were very seldom used, although there was a .410 version of the Lee-Enfield for riot control in India, for if a violent crowd saw their ringleaders shot, they were unlikely to count on his walking to hospital when picked up. This used a round based on the .303 cartridge, not interchangeable with the commercial cartridge, although an English gunmaker used to rechamber them for it in the 1960s. The magazine then wasn't functional.

Flobert rifles and pistols and smoothbore guns, with a lifting-block action, were imported from Belgium. Some, even smoothbores for the BB cap, were used for indoor target practice - "saloon pistols", although that term came from the French "salon", not a saloon in the American sense.

Improvements in the airgun probably killed this form of recreation. But some were used with shot cartridges for disposing or rats etc., and eventually superseded by single-shot bolt actions. I think all-brass cartridges for these were a fairly late development. Old ones I have seen, by Eley I believe, had a distinctive chequered paper body, and the brass head is duplicated in the slightly larger diameter rear portion of the modern Fiocchi 9mm. shotshell.

I never saw one of the paper shells fired, but I was told that they had the unusual property of permitting the paper body to detach and pass down the bore. This would be an interesting way of concentrating the shot, if it was deliberate, but I suspect that it was the result of deteriorated ammunition. It would surely interfere with the pattern, and it is hard to see how you could be sure a case body would never remain behind as a bore obstruction. Besides, what do you want a no.10 shot pattern concentrated for?

I don't know if the Marble Game Getter was imported. It seems like an interesting zoologist's or survival weapon, but Britain is a small island, and people seldom went more than a day trip into the wilderness. Also from 1937, and probably from 1921, any rifle and a shotgun with a less than 20in. barrel became subject to more intrusive licencing. Shotguns had been more popular than rifles, even in totally unlicenced days and I doubt if there was much of a market for it.

Someone once showed me, with an interest in selling, an Italian .410 of similar proportions with a detachable stock and a sort of Snider action. A crinkle-enamelled receiver and moulded plastic case suggested that it was of relatively recent manufacture, and I would be very surprised if it was licenced, or ever had been in the UK. I conveyed in proper polite language that I wouldn't touch it with the dirty end of someone else's barge-pole. Even if I had been prepared to break the law, it was a most unappealing firearm. So I believe he either surrendered it to the police or reduced it to its component elements.

[longbow]

BIS:

Certainly not rifled choke tubes so thread drift but that's okay.

I decided to do some digging and found this:

http://www.fourten.org.uk/mwpre410.html
http://www.fourten.org.uk/mw44.html

I'll have to look through my old Cartridges of the World as well as I seem to recall having seen the .44-40 XL shot cartridge before and possibly that went along with the Marble's Game Getter which I know is in there.

According to those links the .44 shotshell were reasonably popular as a small bore shotgun quite some time ago and I can believe that they would be useful by farmers or anyone who kept a large garden and chicken coops or other lifestock where foxes, racoons and other undesirable critters might visit. With round ball at moderate range I am sure it would kill a coyote or fox and the shotshells would be good for rats and raccoons along with crows and other pesky birds at moderate ranges in the garden.

It seems to me that in the late 1800's/early 1900's that there was much more interest in versatility and economy. If you look through some of the old Ideal manuals (Castpics) and Cartridges of the World you'll see a variety of bullets and moulds that are not to be found now and for calibers that have long disappeared. The variety is staggering and I have to think that a lot of the interest was mostly versatility from one firearm and economy in loading. People did not have the disposable income back then as they do now so factory rounds were a pricey commodity for most I think.

Anyway, strolling back around to shotguns... I have to think that versatility of the shotgun is what keeps it going and has done so from the early days. If you had to choose one gun for keeping critters under control, hunting and self defense (at least at close range) its hard to beat the shotgun. I'm thinking that is also the same philosophy that led to the Paradox, Explora, Fauneta, etc. guns ~ one gun "does it all" (more or less).

I do like the 1874 Sharps which I think is one of the absolute classics in guns but I have to say that even Quiggley would not be shooting foxes or raccoons in the henhouse with a .45-110!

I have to think that shotgun history and development in the UK and Europe must have been far greater than in North America due to population and circumstances there. I would think a shotgun far more useful overall than a long range rifle.

Do you know what the status of rifled shotguns and/or rifled choke tubes is in Europe? Russia? It seems that smoothbore slug development is still going strong in Europe and Russia.

I recall Ross Seyfried writing about rifled shotguns in the early days of them and commenting that when he was at the Brenneke factory in Germany the technicians couldn't understand why Americans wanted rifled shotguns when there were so many good smoothbore slugs that shot well. I have to think that rifled guns and slugs are now outshooting smoothbore slugs at extended range but actually finding side by side comparisons is difficult. Lots of claims but not much side by side testing I've found.

"A crinkle-enamelled receiver" Yuck! Yes, I'd be at the clean end of the barge pole too!

Longbow

[longbow]

And another link to .44 shotguns:

http://jefenry.com/main/The44-Shot.php

[Ballistics in Scotland]

It is a little puzzling why Marble should have chosen that slightly bottlenecked case. I seem to remember, though I can't quite find the picture at the moment, that the .44-40 had a longer length than the rifle round, reduced so that it would enter the throat and bore. Perhaps it did all right with a cardboard cup like the 9m. rimfire, or perhaps they inserted a wad before necking it down - which should work very well for sealing the bore, but not for handloading. I'd still think something like the .38-55 or one of the Winchester self-loading rifle cases would have been better.

There was a European directive of 1991 which laid down minimum standards which individual nations could increase. That made short or repeating rifled firearms subject to authorisation, single-shot rifled ones freely acquirable but requiring notification (i.e. registration unless they forget), and single-barrel smoothbores requiring neither authorisation nor notification. I think that is still about the situation in France, and I doubt if they make a distinction between rifling intended to stabilise a slug, and rifling intended to spread shot - which in fact will probably do either. The legislators have probably never heard of detachable choke tubes.

In the UK a shotgun certificate gives you the right to fill your house with registered shotguns, and being a member of homo sapiens covers any incomplete shotgun. But for rifled firearms or major parts you must make an individual application and convince them that you have a use for the firearm, and it won't endanger "public safety or the peace". I think anything rifled is rifled.

The distinction probably arises because it is easy to get within a few feet of an ordinary citizen you want to rob, revenge yourself on, or can't wait from a divorce from, but getting within a few feet of a politician is less likely. There was an assassination of a Member of Parliament a couple of years back, by a propeller-head who blamed her for destroying society by supporting immigration, and another in Irish politics in 1990. Before that I believe, the last was a Prime Minister in 1812, which was held to be a bit of a throwback to less civilised times.