ORIGINAL: bullet_magnet
hey guys what slugs should i be using with my 12 gauge mossberg 500? i've got a 24 inch slug barrel but im pretty sure its not rifled. I need to be using 3inch slugs, all help is appreciated thanks!
Open the breech. Put a clean patch against the face of the breechblock to reflect light, and look down the barrel from the muzzle. Do you see any spiral grooves?? If not, it is NOT rifled.
If the gun is not rifled, you will have to shoot bore-size lead slugs, not any of the newly designed sabot-types. This limits you to either the Foster type, which are short, hollow-based slugs generally having "rifling" grooves swaged on the sides. These grooves really do nothing (the slugs don't really spin) except reduce resistance to help the slugpass through a tight choke without damaging anything. Of course, the thin skirt of the hollow base also helps them go through a tight choke as well.
The other type of slug you can use in smoothe bores is the Brenneke design, which includes the Lightfield brand. These have the wad attached to the slug, and the wad goes along as a partof the slug to keep it flying point-on, like a badminton shuttlecock.
The Brenneke type slugs are much more dependable killers of heavy game than the Foster type. But you will have to try several different brands of both types in order to find out which kind are the most accurate from your gun-all guns differ in this regard, so testing is inescapable if you want the best performance.
From looking at them, you'd think a 12-ga slug would bowl over anything that it hit. This is not true-you have to place a shotgun slug just as carefully as any rifle bullet if you want to take the meat home!
If your gun does have rifling, however, you can use the same type of slugs you can shoot from a smoothbore, plus the sabot type, which have to be spun by rifling to achieve enough stability to fly point-forward.
The problem with big, fat lead slugs in rifled barrels is that in some, they lead up the bore. Leadingruins accuracy. But with the sabot slugs, you get about the same performance you'd get from a low-velocity rifle such as a .45/70 or .50/90 shooting bullets of similar weight at comparable velocities. IMO, this is an entirely new ballgame compared to bore-size hollow slugs like the Foster!