Savage 220 load options?

[Wisest.fool]

I don't really mind getting hornady sets i hear they are very awesome, but I know I will get more satisfaction from putting meat in the fridge with my own load.

[megasupermagnum]

I don't really mind getting hornady sets i hear they are very awesome, but I know I will get more satisfaction from putting meat in the fridge with my own load.

Have you shot Hornady SST's? Most people who try them, find they are horrendous. I'm talking 12" accuracy, if you can call it that. I'm out of the factory game by a couple years now, but I haven't seen anything dramatically change as of late. The most consistently accurate slug I know of is the Federal power shok sabot slug. It's just a plain old swaged hollow point lead slug. They usually shoot really well. The Remington Accutips usually shoot well too if you can stomach that price. If they are still around, the Winchester BRI slugs can be good, as are Lightfield slugs.

[Wisest.fool]

Thanks for the info on factory rounds. Haven't tried any. I love hornady in my 6.5 and 308 so I figured they would be good for shotgun too, but I will try for the others first now. More than likely though it will be whatever I can find with the ammo situation these days.

[bcp477]

I can't say I agree with a single thing in this statement. The Savage 212 and 220 were not designed for anything. They are a bolt action shotgun, with a plain old rifled barrel. They don't have any special tricks that you can't get in any other rifle barrel shotgun, other than having a good platform and trigger for accuracy. They still have sloppy shotgun chambers, long forcing cones (no throat), and regular rifling. The twist rate is pretty much with all the others out there at 1:24" twist.

I have had WAY, WAY more success getting good slug accuracy with rifled barrels than I have smooth bores. It is extremely hard to match the accuracy of certain rifled slugs, as there simply are no rifled slugs you can buy to load. Most slugs are for wads, or add other aspects or variables. It can be done, but it is not easy. Rifled barrels on the other hand, you can definitely match factory ammo accuracy. You just can't quite match the velocity of the super light sabot slugs. Every sabot I've ever known about for reloading has been a royal flop in the accuracy department. Round balls are usually extremely accurate from a rifled barrel. I get as good accuracy from a round ball in a rifled barrel, as I ever got with the highest dollar sabot slugs. You can get consistent 4" groups at 100 yards with a round ball. You might even be able to improve on that if you really tested some combinations. You see talks about MOA slug guns, it's all a crock. Once in a while 3 shots get close together, and an internet rumor is born. I always offer to give someone a free range day to show me their MOA slug gun, with the rule you have to do it twice. Two five shot groups. I've only had one taker, he was surprised to learn he really had a 4 MOA slug gun. I don't accept "fliers" as accidents.

I did say that I am not an expert. I stand corrected, for the most part. Thanks for the information. But, I can say, without much fear of contradiction, that the gun in question was NOT designed for undersized musket balls, fired inside plastic shotgun wads not designed for rifled barrels. Surely you would agree (or at least, not disagree) with that. That was the substance of my point, though I certainly admit that I did not really make that clear.

As for the relative accuracy, or lack thereof, of sabot slugs, I cannot speak to that...so I'll certainly take your word for it. BORE sized round balls are most definitely a different matter - and surely you would not argue that.

[Blood Trail]

I’ve have great accuracy at 100 yards with full bore rb loads.

And I agree with SST’s. Some guys swear by them. As for me and my 7 rifled slug guns, only one shot decent groups at 50 yards, and that was with the reduced recoil load.


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[megasupermagnum]

I did say that I am not an expert. I stand corrected, for the most part. Thanks for the information. But, I can say, without much fear of contradiction, that the gun in question was NOT designed for undersized musket balls, fired inside plastic shotgun wads not designed for rifled barrels. Surely you would agree (or at least, not disagree) with that. That was the substance of my point, though I certainly admit that I did not really make that clear.

As for the relative accuracy, or lack thereof, of sabot slugs, I cannot speak to that...so I'll certainly take your word for it. BORE sized round balls are most definitely a different matter - and surely you would not argue that.

I can't argue with that, but I will say I don't think a rifled shotgun barrel has ever been designed for anything. As far as I know, rifled shotguns came out when rifled slugs were still king for deer hunting. If I were to design a rifled barrel to shoot rifled slugs, I would probably do a very shallow, and very slow rifling barrel. That's not what happened. Instead they were typical rifle depth, about .005" deep rifling, and in a relatively fast twist (for big bores) at 1:36". My guess is they rifled a barrel with what they had, found it worked, and called it good. It's just rifling in a shotgun barrel, with no more development past that, even today. No throat's, no crowns, and many aren't any thicker than a regular shotgun barrel. Eventually with the 50 caliber bullets, a lot of shotguns went to 1:28" twist (and even faster in 20 gauge), but I've had just as good or better accuracy from my 1:35" twist ultra slug hunter.

Instead shotgun slugs have always been developed for the gun, the gun was never developed for the ammo. I wish we could get 1:72 twist barrels to shoot these round balls and other slugs, but we cant. I wish we could get a slug gun built with a proper throat, but we cant. I wish we could just get a modified choke with a 1:72 twist that is both accurate with slugs, and still patterns shot well. Still, these faster twists shoot just fine with cast slugs, at least as good as the ammo that was developed for them. In reality shotgun slugs have 50% been developed to sell, not to perform. Hornady SST's are great on paper, 2000 fps sounds good and must sell good, yet they don't shoot for squat, and Hornady doesn't care. My point is there is no development. Someone decades ago pulled a rifling cutter through a shotgun barrel, and that's as far as development ever got.

[Cap'n Morgan]

I wish we could just get a modified choke with a 1:72 twist that is both accurate with slugs, and still patterns shot well.

I've been thinking about such a choke as well, as I would like to see if it can stabilize my sleeved slugs.
The plan is to mill or EDM the rifling in a 3-1/2" long external choke for my Beretta 682.
If things work as planned, the rifling will be an 8-sided, round cornered, polygon with a groove "depth" about .008"
(basically a mix of true cylinder and modified)
The total length of rifling will be 3". I hope it will be enough to start the slug rotating - and not enough to do the same to a shotload.

I'm not quite sure if the rifling should be left- or right hand. I don't want the choke to come lose, but I also don't want for the slugs
to tighten it to a point where it locks up completely. Has anybody any experience if this could be a problem?

[commando223]

I just got a Savage 220 looking for more slug load ideas.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Capt> I don't see a rifled choke tube be influenced very much by the torque that a slug could possibly generate as it passes thru. I think it will stay put.

As far as Rifled Shotgun Barrels. IMHO they cease being shotguns and start being .73 caliber or ?20 ga. Rifles instead of shotguns as soon as the barrel is changed out for a rifled one. As long as the slug is forced to rotate by the rifling, either by direct contact with the slug or contact with a wad that imparts spin to the slug,,, then it's a rifle.

Accuracy would be more contingent on the correct amount of spin needed to stabilize any given slug design, (all are probably different just like spin rates for different bullets are different?) and if the twist rate of the barrel could provide the correct spin for that slug. Slugs are all short and fat, implying the need for a Slower Twist Barrel. 1:36 or around that being most common.

My A5 with Hastings Rifled Barrel shot so well with STI Sabots and Brass Inserts it was scary. See Pics

I also have a Rifled Barrel that fits M500's but it didn't shoot the same loads as well as the A5 did. By the same token it wasn't that bad either. It was more like 2" at 50 yards with iron sights. I feel the Iron Sights might have been the limiting factor there.

Lots of variables here and I'm kind of back at my STI Sabot Slugs being teh most accurate projectile I have fired from Rifled barrels.

Smooth bores are what I'm working on now. My A5 with the "Buck Special" Barrel with sights is a smooth bore with essentially a IC choke in the barrel at the muzzle. It shoots certain types of slugs well and others are all over the place. My Vang Comped barrels pattern buckshot really well No joke 7" at 25 yards! but don't shoot Lee Slugs worth a hoot. This is because of the back boring of the barrel to .745 makes them too loose in the bore and they just wobble down and what ever way they are pointed when they hit the Choke at the end of the barrel is which way they go. No way to predict that.

This is why I was looking at Jug Choking my Monkeyberg barrel. it would have been a consistent .729 then opened up .015
for 2" and then back to .729 for the last 1/2" at the muzzle. Problem is it won't fit thru the spindle of my lathe so It is going to get threaded for choke tubes and I'll run an IC choke tube. This should deliver an acceptable Buckshot pattern and shoot Lee Slugs better. So we'll see.

The whole Idea with the Lee Slugs for volume shooting is that they are the cheapest slugs to load there is. And they should work?

Randy