Choke for Slugs

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  • onedash

    Ultimate Member
    Feb 24, 2016
    1,026
    Calvert County
    Does accuracy change considerably with choke selection? I ordered several types of rifled slugs to try out. Would it be a fair test to just try them all with a skeet choke (or what have you found to be best choke) and whichever one does the best is the winner? Or might each choke have a preferred load? I'm not planning to do this test with every choke.

    Might try them with a cylinder bore barrel too. What are the odds that both guns like the same slug best?
     

    Pale Ryder

    Ultimate Member
    Jan 12, 2009
    6,232
    Millersville
    I had pretty good results with modified choke before, cylinder choke should be good to about 75 yds. Kill zone on a whitetail is pretty generous. At this point I use whatever I can with the shorter barrel.
    If it has screw in choke tubes and shorter barrel try mod.
    Between 18" cyl bore vs 28" modified I'd go 18".
     

    Boxcab

    MSI EM
    MDS Supporter
    Feb 22, 2007
    7,865
    AA County
    Hard to choke those little suckers... the slime makes it hard to get a good hold on them. So I just poke'm with a stick, making a slugcicle, and move on my way.



    :innocent0

    .
     

    Mack C-85

    R.I.P.
    Jan 22, 2014
    6,522
    Littlestown, PA
    I have a 24" cylinder bore non-rifled slug barrel for my Mossberg 500.....

    It's less than "minute of paper plate" :innocent0 at 100 yds., with standard Brenneke type slugs, plenty accurate enough for deer to that distance.

    I took a 7 point buck at 79 yards (according to my range finder) in a howling rain/wind with one shot in the chest, right behind the front leg. Went about 10 yds. and dropped. When the front hit, the wind blew so hard it pushed the tree my two-man ladder stand was attached to hard enough that the ladder was about 18" off the ground!!
     

    delaware_export

    Ultimate Member
    Apr 10, 2018
    3,142
    i use mod on my long barrel shotguns. usually an 1187 with remington sluggers or brenneke ko's.

    good enough to drop hogs out to 80y no problem.

    but make sure you shoot several of whatever combination to ensure you are hitting where you think.

    i missed a nice buck 2 years ago with a borrowed shotgun for not having tried a few slugs. after all these years, i made a rookie mistake. when you check things out, do it as distances you expect to be shooting. 50y or whatever that may be.

    the borrowed gun i was using when i missed the buck at about 60-70y was about a foot wide and low.
     

    Uncle Duke

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Feb 2, 2013
    11,665
    Not Far Enough from the City
    Before the advent of the rifled slug barrel, it was pretty well known and pretty well accepted that your shotgun with Foster and/or Brenneke slugs would likely do one of 3 things. One, you may get minute of pie plate out to 50 yards or so consistently, and perhaps even better with one brand or another that your shotgun really likes. Two, you might be hard pressed to hit a target the size of the pie delivery truck, if your shotgun didn't like a certain brand. And 3, if your shotgun was an 870 in one choke configuration, and your buddy had an 870 also, and in the same identical configuration? Well, his shotgun would drive tacks with Remington Sluggers, while yours couldn't hit the wall of the pie factory, not even if fired from the inside, and with the very same load.

    I'm joking of course. Well..... halfway. But now as then, bottom line is this. If you want to know what YOUR shotgun will do with slugs? Then go shoot different slugs. I promise you that you'll see noticeably different results between brands.

    Now we can talk about differences in chokes. And we can talk about differences in Foster slug diameters, and the differences between Foster and Brenneke slug construction. And you know what? I'd argue it's information that, for your stated purposes, won't help one damned bit. There's no shortcut, and there's no better way to know what your shotgun can or will go with slugs, than to shoot slugs.

    Regarding shooting slugs, it's no small blessing that you've got time to do some serious testing before you take that shotgun into the deer woods. Do your testing carefully and in small doses. Ali back in the day used to smile when he got hit for the 40th time by Frazier. Nah, that didn't hurt. Nah my ass. And you won't do your best shooting either, leaning into your 40th slug in an hour's time. You want to see what your shotgun likes, not how many shots it takes to rattle the fillings out of your teeth.

    Good Luck, and let us know how you make out if you get the chance.
     

    Aamdskeetshooter

    Ultimate Member
    Dec 19, 2013
    1,744
    Moco
    Every slug barrel I’ve ever seen was cylinder. Choke will deform the slug making it less accurate. You also increase the chance of blowing the choke tube out of the barrel when using a tighter choke.
     

    Biggfoot44

    Ultimate Member
    Aug 2, 2009
    32,877
    Back in the day before rifling, the major mfg "slug gunv with best reputation for accuracy was the Ithica Deerslayer . It used an undersize bore of about .710 .

    While most "slug bbls " were nominally cylnder bore , the general consensus was best accuracy with a bit of constriction , up to IC . ( Foster slugs are safe to fire from all factory chokes.)

    As noted, each individual gun was a law onto itself as to what it shot well .

    Federal's Truball is different from Fosters , and was designed maximum accuracy from a smoothbore . They are my default choice .
     

    Kagetsu

    Active Member
    Feb 4, 2009
    448
    Just going from stuff online,,, they can't be wrong. Anything tighter than imp cyl over pressured the barrel with slugs. Though I've not tried many, but i found slugs to be acceptable at 50 yrds but at 100,,,meh. It was luck I didn't hit the frame.
     

    Gcs7th

    Ultimate Member
    Jan 26, 2012
    1,280
    AGC
    I've shot a lot of slugs, and I've seen my best results with a rifled choke from Carlsons. I also recommend cleaning the bore with a tornado brush after shooting a few of each slug, you'll find the barrel gets leaded up pretty quick as the lead slug bounces around inside the barrel. Typically my barrel looks fuzzy after shooting 25-40 slugs in a range session. Accuracy suffers as the barrel gets leaded up and when I'm done looks almost fuzzy. Practice as you intend to shoot, cold clean bore between testing of different slugs. I find the tornado brushes loops quickly remove deposits from your barrel after I spent 2hrs trying to clean with a standard bronze brush.
     

    Pale Ryder

    Ultimate Member
    Jan 12, 2009
    6,232
    Millersville
    Just going from stuff online,,, they can't be wrong. Anything tighter than imp cyl over pressured the barrel with slugs. Though I've not tried many, but i found slugs to be acceptable at 50 yrds but at 100,,,meh. It was luck I didn't hit the frame.

    There's a reason for the hollow base in the Foster slug, along with the ribs. It is so it can swag up/down to the size of the barrel. You can shoot a Foster out of any choke size, it is recommended not to do to many thru a turkey full choke. Thinking that with that choke and the amount of leading in the bore, it might raise pressures.
     

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