tganz

So, after burning through more than a 100 bucks worth of sabot slugs trying to sight in my new rifled shotgun barrel, I heard that you can use rifled slugs in a rifled barrel as long as you clean it out pretty well, and that they can give you better accuracy, and are significantly cheaper. Is this true, and if so, any recommendations on types?

LifexIsxHunting

Nope, my uncle ruined an expensive hastings barrel doing that. Between the rifled barrel and the rifled slugs it will just foul the barrel up so bad it will just make a smooth bore out of the barrel. Rifled barrel= smooth slug or sabot slug. Smooth bore= rifled slug or smooth slug (smooth slug wont be as accurate)

SWThomas

Absolutely no way a rifled slug will be more accurate than a sabot fired from a rifled barrel. Someone lied to you.

Dan480Man

Somewhere around here I have an old gun magazine, from the 80's, that shows a then new rifled barrel being used for testing slugs.
It definately shot rifled slugs(foster style), and shot them in tighter groups than a smoothbore.
Sabots were not even available many places then. As I recall, they only tested one sabot, and I think it was solid copper. Seems like
it was for police.

bigcountry

You know, I would have agreed withyou, but watched mossyoak33 on here shoot sluggers much better than sabots out of a rifled barrel.

I would say most of the time your correct.

DeerandbearhoG

Stick w/ sabots in a rifled barrel. assuming your scope/mounts and barrel nut are tight, make sure you have a steady front, AND rear rest, along w/ a solid bench. A sand bag on a tailgate ,aint gonna cut it.(not saying you did that) MAKE SURE YOU DONT REST THE PUMP ON THE FRONT REST, you will not likely get consistent groups! rest the mag/receiver on the front bag and pull the buttstock back tight into your shoulder, hold the forend downward.

Forget about the wizzbang 50cal. bullet sabots, use one of the chunkier slug/thinner sabot slugs. IME they are more accurate/ consistant in most guns. I recommend:
-lightfield hybrids 2.75
-hastings laser mag
-brennekke KO sabots


As far as breneke and foster style(rem sluggers) go, they are designed to be squeezed down through a choked barrel. remington actually use to choke their rifle sight smoothbore barrels to IC. Thats what the rifleing (grooves) in the slug are for, the slug does not actually spin. Ive looked down the barrel of a smoothbore that Ive fired slugs through, and saw no twist. Ive tried "rifled" slugs in a rifled barrel and got poor results, however you can put a cleaning rod and a copper bore brush, in a drill and get almost all of the lead out, you can also try black coated brenekee rifled slugs to cut down on leading I think brenekee even recomends them for rifled barrels and smoothys. I tried them in a rifled barrel H&R trackerII and a ithaca deerslayer II did get less lead in the barrel but accuracy was poor but mabye theyll do better in your gun.

Pygmy

Sabot slugs are probably a better choice for rifled shotgun bores.

There are a LOT of different slugs to try, and you might spend lots of $$$ finding the best projectile for your barrel...

HOWEVER, foster type rifled slugs ARE a safe, viable, effective alternative for your rifled bore, and could be an accurate and relatively inexpensive choice, as your buddy has already discovered..

It wouldn't cost you much to find out.....

Good luck and keep us posted...

HNI_Christine

I tried several brands of the saboted slugs out of the rifled barrel of my .870. They were all the 'hot' sabots. 1900 fps or better.

The impression I got from them was in the form of welts and bruises... but I can't say the accuracy was much to get excited about. Then I heard that the stock rifled barrel on the .870 was not meant for those higher speed slugs. So I went with the much less punishing (to me) foster rifled slugs. I actually got better groups... but it might be because I wasn't nearly as flinchy shooting them.

That's my experience.

coach1299

I've been shooting the standard Winchester/BRI sabot slugs out of my 870 with a Hastings slug barrel for about 15 years. I vividly recall the warning (from Hastings) about using rifled slugs and to use only sabots. The sabots still perform perfectly in that barrel. I think it would be a big mistake to go against the grain and try using rifled slugs. I agree with the other posts that suggested that the two misaligned rifling's would never match up but rather clash resulting in poor performance from the rifled slug. It only makes sense that you can only have rifling on one or the other because there's no way that the rifling in the barrel, and on a slug would ever match up. Bullets are designed to conform to the rifling in the barrel, and rifling on a slug is an inferior way to try and get a slug to shoot like a bullet from a smooth bore, but mixing the two is a recipe for disaster IMO. If it is true that some rifled slugs achieved good performance from a slug barrel, I would have to think it was because the much harder steel barrel rifling completely took over and reformed the soft lead rifling to conform with the lands and grooves in the barrel, completely negating the rifling on the lead slug by the time it exited the muzzle.

SWThomas

So you're saying he got better accuracy shooting these out of a rifled barrel compared to sabots???