I was wondering what would happen if you shot sabots or shotshells like the Reminton Core-Loct out of a barrel that isnt rifled or smooth bore. My barrel is just a regular bird barrel. I was wondering if anyone has tried this and if so what would happen. I have a 20 gauge remington 870 youth model if that helps.

Sabot slug are made to use with a rifled barrel or at least a rifled choke tube. You're not going to gain anything by using them in a smooth bore barrel. You're better off using foster style slugs!

Without the rifling to impart spin on the Sabot the bullet will quickly start tumbling end over end shortly after it leaves the barrel. This will result in very erratic performance.

HUGE waste of money. Sure you can do it, but don't expect them to shoot very well. You might get lucky and they will shot as good as regular slugs, but I wouldn't count on it. Why spend $10+ on a box of shells that most likely will not perform any better than a $3 box of shells?

Rifled slugs shoot pretty good out of a rifled barrel, but sabots tend to not work to well out of a smooth bore. I don't think it would hurt to try it though, it's your money. I would check with a manufacturer though to make sure there isn't an issue with the choke on a smooth bore. Rifled slugs are designed to shoot out of a choked rifle, sabots are not.

Paul

It sounds like you've got a gun that is smooth bore to me and you'd be best off using foster style slugs for sure.

In order for a bullet (even a round ball) to be stabilized it must be spun. The longer the bullet the faster it must spin top be stable. This spinning is called a gyroscopic effect. If the bullet is not stabilized it will simply fly downrange tumbling and spinning end over end. This tumbling creates huge ammounts of turbulance around the projectile causing it to loose velocity incredibly fast and causing it to veer off its intended course very irradically.

Spin is created two ways with a slug.

One is with a rifled slug where the slug has angular grooves molded onto the slug itself. These grooves spin the slug similar to the way a tire turns your vehicle. When friction is created in a direction other than the direction of travel that friction will turn (spin) the object in that direction.

The other way is to place a bullet inside a plastic sleeve called a sabot and fire it in a fully rifled barrel. The rifleing cuts grooves into the plastic sabot and spins the sabot. The sabot and bullet are pressed tightly together under pressure and the friction created between them holds them together and the sabot imparts spin to the bullet.

A smooth bore barrel will not fire sabot slugs with any accuracy and terminal performance will be a crap shoot as well since the bullet will be tumbeling when it reaches the animal.


A simple way of looking at it is to picture a football being thrown. The throw that spins the ball perfectly will always fly more accurately but he throw that caused the ball to tumble may get there and it may not.

Actually the fins on a rifled bullet impart no spin on it what so ever. They are simply there to crush when the slug goes thru the choke. This is why some of the slugs with the long wads that stay attached are more stable in flight. They sort of act like fletchings on an arrow.

Paul

Thanx for all your help.