Joystick99

I recently bought a 24" rifled barrel for my Mossberg 500 12 gauge. I' m going out to pattern it tomorrow, and it suddenly occurred to me that it may not be a good idea to fire 00 buckshot through a rifled barrel. Can somebody please shed some light on this? I' m using Winchester 3" 00 solid lead shot with a full choke. I don' t plan to shoot slugs through it. Thanks!

BOWFANATIC

I' d reccomend not ruining a perfectly good rifled slug barrel by shooting 00buck through it! I cant think of a single scenario where I' d rather be loaded with 00buck than a good sabot slug.

Tree climber

if you do not intend on useing slugs,then there is no reason to not use the 00.
If you clean and brush it very often and very good,it will not hurt it anyway.you could still use slugs at a later date.....JMHO

A.K.A eastwood

i have the same model shotgun. why dont you buy the field barrel for it. then depending on what you need, swap the barrrels. works like a champ.

p.s. my shotgun is the only gun in my arsenal that i have taken game with..................so far

BarnesX.308

I don' t think the buck shot could hurt the rifling but your pattern will probably stink. The rifling could act as a centrifuge and your pattern will resemble a donut with the hole in the middle getting bigger as the range increases. I never tried it so I' m not backing my claim 100% but that' s what I hear and it makes sense.

Scott Meier
White Oak Lodge

joeturse

I was thinking the same thing Scott,rifled barrel would really make a wide pattern.
like to try it,just for an experiment,but not with my gun.

Joe

Joystick99

Thanks for the input, everybody. I didn' t realize the barrel was rifled until it arrived (from Ebay, of course). Sounds like the thing to do is to switch back to the original 28" smooth-bore " goose gun" barrel and worry about getting a shorter smooth-bore during the off-season.

Nomercy

Why exactly did you buy a rifled bbl if you' re not planning on using slugs through it? They don' t pattern for crap with shot of any kind.

On the up side, you' re not going to hurt your bbl by shooting shot through it, remember, you' ve got a shot cup, so your shot isn' t going to contact your bbl anyway, I' d just recommend staying away from paper component shells, as the paper wads would wear down your rifling more quickly than plastic wads, although neither really should prove to wear a bbl any faster than lead slugs.

jerseyhunter

Try patterning that bucshot at 25 yds. You' ll be lucky if you get one pellet in the kill zone. With a rifled choke tube you might get two three at the most. Stick with the slugs or you surely will be wounding more than you kill.