Not sure where to post this so here goes. Can you shoot sabot slugs out of a smoothbore w/ a modified or improved cylinder choke?

I imagine you can shoot them safely enough, but the projectiles they contain must have spin to make them stable and to fly point-forward. That takes a rifled barrel, or at least a screw-in rifled choke tube, to set them spinning. If you can't spin them, the target couldn't be any further away than 8'-10', if you want to hit it!

I remember well when the 12-ga. BRI "dumbell" shaped sabot slugs first became available around 1972. The makers claimed they could be shot from a smoothbore, as the rear "fins" would make them fly point-forward. Well, I tried them in my Ithaca Deerslayer, (a smoothbore) a scoped gun which would shoot Remington Foster slugs into 3" @ 100 yards. Well, the BRI dumbell slugs flew sideways, broke in two in the middle, etc., etc. In other words they didn't work in any smoothbore we tried them in!!

With a smoothbore, you are better off using the old, Foster-type slugs or an original Brenneke-type. This includes the Lightfield Brenneke style which are very powerful slugs!

BRI ( Ballistic Research Institute) wasin California back in the 60's. They did all their testing with Mosberg 500's. I have a 60's Shooters Bible that has thehistory and all of BRI'sresearch.I started shooting BRI'sin Rifled Barrels when they werefirst placed on the shelves. In the 70's Winchester bought them out.

You can shoot them safely, but your simply wasting money. With out the stabilization of spinning they tumble end over end. Ofcourse this plays havoc with accuracy.

A few years ago we played around with shooting Remington Solid Coppers out of my IC deer barrel. We shot them at an old car. I will say they made interesting holes going through and coming out the car doors. I always figured they would make an excellent home defense round used this way.

Yes! When they claimed they'd work in smoothbore barrels, it didn't take us (or Winchester) long to discover that wasn't so, and then they changed the claim to "in rifled barrels". We even went so far as to fire a few of them from a Brown Bess musket (.75-cl.) with 120 grains of FFg. No luck there either!

BTW, the ones I tried out first were in white & blue boxes marked Smith & Wesson. I don't know how they became involved, but it was at about that same time that S&W was marketing a pretty nice semi-auto shotgun! I think those were made by Howa, as well as the S&W rifles that are now Weatherby Vanguards!

I have a 12 ga. 870( scoped) that I have had for many years. It has the slug barrel but it is the improved cylinder choke. I have tried many differant types of slugs in that weaponandI alway go back to the good old federal1 oz. pumpkin slug. Nothing fancy and only 2 to 3 bucks a box. Have killed many deer with at type of slug. Remington make a excellent weapon but I have had two 870's and thay both shot Remington slugs for crap. Federal was without a doubt the best slug for holding a patternno matter whatdistanceI was shooting at.

I can take my BRN A-5 & Hastings fully rifled barrel W/FED HP (BRI Style) Sabot and bust burned-out flood lamps @ 150+ yds on my 200yd range.

If you feel like wasting money and shooting sabots out of a smoothbore I would highly suggest using an IC or more open choke. The fins on the rifled slugs are not there to impart any spin on the slug, this is a myth. The fins are there to crush as the slug goes through the constriction of the choke.

A sabot has a solid plastic shell with a lead slug or jacketed bullet inside of it and is normally the size of the full bore barrel for that ga. Which means when it gets to the restriction at the end of a smoothbore barrel there is nothing to collapse on the projectile. I can't imagine this is a good thing. Will it blow the end of your barrel off? Probably not but I would not risk it with the price of even a cheap shotgun.

And even if it doesn't hurt anything, like the others said the accuracy would be very poor and not worth the cost of even the cheapest sabot slugs. Especially when it may shoot twice as well with slugs that cost 2 or 3 dollars a box.

Paul

Are the screw in rifled chokes any good? This would be for my Rem. 870, this is the 1st season they've allowed slugs in my county and I'm trying to find out what's good so I can go out and buy some then take them to the range. Thanks guys!

I'm sure I would, but don't want to spend a lot of $ and I'm guessing that will cost several hundred $$$. I don't need it out to 100 yds, w/ 00 buckshot, I'm only good to 40, I'd be happy w/ an additional 10 yds. w/a slug if it can happen cheap...