I want a better pattern at 40 yards and maybe 50 yards with my 870 turkey gun. Will a forcing cone change make much difference in turkey guns? Whats involved, just reaming out some more material near the chamber to lengthen the cone?
If its so good, why don't they do it at the factory?
It helps with the pattern. The forcing cone is removed. It's probably cost prohibitive to do at the factory. However, I think the Brownings with the Invector-Plus choke tubes have lengthened forcing cones.
Forgive me if this is a dumb question....what exactly is a forcing cone? I've heard it mentioned when cleaning/polishing your barrel with green scrub pad material too.
KitsapCaller, here's a diagram showing where the forcing cone is, and where the different parts of a barrel are located. It also show's what it look's like after having your forcing cone "lengthened". The "polishing" up of your forcing cone area might work on some guns due to the fact that they may have a ruff surface. It may help some, but it's not the same thing as actually having someone "ream" out your forcing cone area. Pro-Port does this service and highly polishes this area to almost a mirror finish after the reaming out process. Like Adrian said, it will give you 10%+ better patterns. So if your putting anywhere from 250-300 pellets on paper, this procedure will put another 30+ pellets on your target VS being flyers!! Hope that this helps answer your question.
What choke and shell are you using? To many guys are using the wrong choke in their guns. Somebody says super full is the only way to go and you buy in. Go pattern your gun and try a lot of different shells and shot sizes and pay loads and chokes. My poor old Win. 1300 won't pattern with anything over 1 1/4oz of shot. It shoots 5 or 4 shot the best, but only at 1200ft/sec. And with a full choke, anything tighter kills my pattern at 40yds. The new guns with lengthened forcing cones and overbored barrels are nice, but since I put the time in I can kill the same bird at 40yds they can.
Gselkhunter
What choke and shell are you using? To many guys are using the wrong choke in their guns. Somebody says super full is the only way to go and you buy in. Go pattern your gun and try a lot of different shells and shot sizes and pay loads and chokes. My poor old Win. 1300 won't pattern with anything over 1 1/4oz of shot. It shoots 5 or 4 shot the best, but only at 1200ft/sec. And with a full choke, anything tighter kills my pattern at 40yds. The new guns with lengthened forcing cones and overbored barrels are nice, but since I put the time in I can kill the same bird at 40yds they can.
Gselkhunter
I was using a remington super full. Hard to pay a bunch of money for every choke under the sun. I used remington #6 last year. Looking into others this year.
So Mr. Long your the only one that has positive response to lengthened the cone. I was doing this on a 870 express barrel. So I am sure its short cone.
My full choke came with the gun. And I have to admit I load all my own shells, so I make the way I want them. As for your forcing cone in an 870, my best turkey hunting partner used a 30" mod. barrel[not screw in choke] and a Federal Premium 4X6 duplex load in 3" 1 5/8oz. It was the best turkey gun I ever saw. When he died his daughter sold it before I could buy it. Your forcing cone should be the same as that gun. The point is, look at the choke vs load. If you try to make it too tight, with too much shot you will blow the load apart. Only 1 1/4oz of shot fits into the shot cup, the rest of the load bounces down the barrel. Then you slam it into a very tight choke and beat it up that much more. Disfigured pellets are called flyers, it means they have flat spots. That means they will leave the pattern. This equates into less pattern density, because damaged pellets can't fly straight. A longer forcing cone will stop some pellet deformation, but it works best with an overbored barrel. I would look at the other end of the gun and smaller pay loads. The other thing is the faster the load the harder it is on the pellets. The last and most important thing is every gun handles loads different.
Gselkhunter
Forcing cone changes
