Many vintage American guns that I am familiar with were built with with full and full chokes, probably because of the popularity of waterfowl hunting and trap shooting. When these guns and their full chokes were made, there were no plastic shot cups. Today, a great deal of high quality ammunition - lead, bismuth, Nice shot and perhaps other soft no-tox ammo suitable for vintage guns - is made with plastic shot cups. Have any of you used ammo with plastic shot cups in your vintage full choke barrels, for example duck hunting with Nice shot or bismuth? If so, are you comfortable that the plastic shot cup leave the muzzle without negative impact on the chokes or barrels?

Many thousands of rounds of plastic cupped lead shot through vintage full chokes with no bad experiences. The plastic does build up at the choke though.

16 gauge Parker choked full and full - 3,000 rounds in Argentina.

12 gauge Parker VH choked full and full - Shot 19 rounds of trap with it yesterday (7/8oz), several thousand since I bought it.

Best,

Mike

My old Parkers, LCS gather less plastic than my new Briley Ultimate tube set

bill

My 870 and 1100 trap guns have .038 and .037 constriction same as many of my classic doubleguns + or - a few thou. I too have shot thousands of rounds through classic doubles, all with shotcups and no issues what so ever.

About 10 years ago I was trap shooting using #7 steel shot in a 12 gauge Stevens 5100 with absolutely no il effects to the bores.
Steve

Thanks very much for the helpful feedback.

Rich

Rich, I wish you had not brought that question up. I've been shooting Bismuth Classic 4's and 5's in my old Parkers and Foxes with full choke for years and never considered that it might be a problem.

For whatever my experience might be worth, I've noticed no damage whatever, but I do keep the plastic build-up cleaned out of the barrels pretty consistantly...Geo

Some personal observations based on experience and guns examined & seen for sale at shows:

I don't think you have concern for choke damage w/full choke constrictions IF you stick to modern loads, even w/steel shot [much tougher plastic & better designs in the newer steel shot wads] & shot sizes of size 4 or smaller. Having said that, I would NEVER shoot anything but lead shot or bismuth in an FN or any of the older German guns [or any high grade gun for that matter] for the simple reason that I have seen and examined several that had their Full chokes bulged, presumably from the use of hard steel shot. It may have been too large shot as well, but I had no way of determining that as these are mostly guns that were for sale at shows I am speaking of. I have also seen guns w/heavily scored bbls. in the form of straight line striations [think crude straight rifling] from early steel shot loads where the pellets penetrated the wads' petals or wall. Again, I have no way of knowing the exact loads used to do that damage; it could have even been some enterprising sort who was using BB gun BB's w/regular lead shot wads! There was sufficient talk & discussion when steel first came into use to know wad petal penetration occured w/some early factory ammunition & recovery of some of those wads confirmed it. Too, some some pellets were overly hard & some early wads left exposed shot above the petals .. so I would avoid using any early or old steel ammuntion in any gun I was remotely concerned about, period. An 870 Express Magnum, Mossburg 500 or any of the inexpensive modern purpose built waterfowl guns can eat that stuff w/impunity. FWIW, I have an older 870 Wingmaster w/fixed Full choke constriction of .041 that has digested around ten flats [50 boxes of 25 cartridges] of 2&3/4" Steel #4 loads made by Remington, Federal & Winchester w/o any sign of damage whatsoever. I'm not suggesting you do that with your valued doubles, but a Browning BSS [Miroku mfg.] choked F&F can handle factory steel loads up to size 4 w/no fear & so can some other more modern doubles. I have shot 1&1/4oz. of Remington & Federal steel 4's through a 3" 12ga. Beretta 686 w/factory flush fitting 'Mod' screw-in chokes repeatedly to no ill effect & they remain easy to remove for cleaning or switching.

As to the shooting of lead shot target ammo w/plastic wads through full choke constrictions, none of us will have the opportunity to be around long enough to measure any wear or see any damage from it. Think ATA trap shooting .. Full chokes for the most part & endless shooting. They do OTHER stuff to damage their guns;-)

In summary, plastic used in wads is 'softer' than lead, don't sweat it's use.

Perhaps something here to help allay your concerns.

kind regards, tw

A fellow posting on another site who lives close to the ocean talked about shooting several ducks and having them "explode". Later examination of his steel shot shells (left over from past seasons) revealed that saltwater had gotten into the shot and the steel pellets had literally rusted into large lumps. He didn't post whether or not it had damaged his gun barrel.
Something to think about when using old steel shot shells.
Steve

I build my shotshells using the shot cup but not the entire shot wad. I do place a 1/4 inch dry felt wad and a 1/4 inch lubed wad and then the shot cup in that order. I do not get a plastic build up with this method.

I read that rust thing somewhere, and just for grins, cut open a bunch of old steel #1's. Rusted solid enough to make a slug! Threw em all away...Dunno how many I actually shot...I did detonate a dove couple of years ago with my 28 bore CZ. The wad and shot stayed together (why?) dint eat that one...

I shot a redhead drake a few years ago and found the shotcup inside the bird! Not a real close shot either, perhaps 25 yards. Several pellets had rusted together and were still in the bottom of the cup. What are the odds???