doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Double Rifles, Paradox Guns & Gauge Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Sabot slugs ????

Is it necessary to have a barrel rifled all the way to shoot sabot slugs ???
I an thinking of having rifled screw-ins put in a 20 gauge SxS and shooting sabot slugs.
What is your thinking on this?
Best,
John

Your choke ideal is a throwback. Isn't this a variation of the Paradox rifling? You would think that it would be hard to get enough spin in a short choke tube but it does work. H&H and several French makers used a rifled choke area for slugs.

John:
My (limited!) understanding is that rifled choke-tubes were designed specifically for saboted slugs, by all makers including Cation et al. Even if that were not the case, they should work just fine.

In the spirit of this board, just do it!, then report back...

I'm interested in doing the same . . . love to have a double with rifle sights for deer. What kind of 20 will you use?

John, I have two shotguns that have after market choke tubes installed (TruChoke) I had this done because of steel shot. I bought a Cation (?) rifled choke tube to try with sabots. It works very well and very accurate. Win. Supreme slugs were the most accurate of all I shot from the bench (ouch). Some years ago the American Rifleman had an article comparing them to fully rifled barrels. As I recall they were almost or as good, memory dims with age. Seldom use a shotgun for deer, but did shoot one adult doe at 75 yds. It went about another 75 yds. and piled up.

wiredducker
The gun is a Stevens 311 that Stevens was experimenting with. Below are a couple os pics.
http://www.worldpath.net/~jmann/Stevens1.JPG
http://www.worldpath.net/~jmann/Stevens2.JPG
http://www.worldpath.net/~jmann/Stevens6.JPG
This very unusual site is designed by Nicols. Elmer Keith once wrote about. Seems that Stevens was thinking of the same thing that I questioned about but had not put in screwins.
Best,
John

John, according to Remington, their Copper Solid Sabot Slugs should only be shot using a rifled barrel or rifled choke. One of those through a fully rifled 870 took care of a biggish wild boar.

On the other hand, I have in front of me a box of "SAGA Bala Expansiva" (http://www.saga.es/angles/home.html) that are specially made for use in smooth bores with any type of choke. I have tried them and they are very accurate and have fantastic penetration. According to the manufacturers they also work very well with rifling.

JC(AL)

John, your private message mailbox is currently full.

JC(AL)

I'm interested to hear what you come up with for a rifled choke tube -- specifically to work with whatever you have as bore dimensions in that gun.

Have you graphed the bores of that mysterious side by side yet?

Proper paradox guns are special critters. I'll be interested to see what you come up with and if you can get it to put both barrels in the same tidy little group.
Have you tried simply running factory rifled slugs through it? Some smooth bore slug guns do quite well without the rifling. If that gun was indeed set up with shooting slugs in mind, it's possible it will do well with the off the shelf loads.
If that is the case, rifled choke tubes might not be the thing to do to that gun.

I am also interested to see what the rear sight looks like on that gun.
I've seen that photo you have there of the blocky front sight. What's the rear like?


--Tinker

Tinker et al
There is no rear sight. It would appear that the gun was unfinished as there is no evidence that any clors or blue were ever on it.
This sight is very interesting. When searching to an explanation of the gun , one fellow on the 24 Hour Campfire told me what it was and that he had seen a 12 gauge that was sold in this same clearing out at Stevens.
I will take your advice and test it befor I do anything to it.
Best,
John

Hey Mr. Mann if you have 12ga ready to accept Browning Std.Inv or Winchoke I can send you two tubes. Both are rifled, but one is for sabot slugs while second nicely ported unit is for Foster-type slugs. I send them to you and you in turn test them for us. So, is it a deal or what?

Sorry so late into this John.

I have done a great deal of slug testing (why? why not) and have found that results may vary.

Apparently some sabot slugs need adequate spin to detach the wad (due to the pressures that get them to 2000fps), let alone stabilize them, but some guns shoot them great anyway(>100 yds).
The slugs that typically shoot the best out of rifled tubes are the older BRI (hourglass) style slugs, which also shoot pretty well out of a normal IC choke.
I would try the Breneke(sp?) non-sabot as a good performer, or the Rem buckhammer.
Hey, trying them all might work too because I have a feeling that slight differences in bore diameter may make a difference.
Whatever you do, good luck and good shooting.

Cheers

Tom

John, there's one problem which no one has addressed here. You can't screw in two rifled choke tubes, screw on a set of rifle sights, and expect that your barrels will print together, at any range. The only way that you'd achieve that would be to re-regulate the gun. What you can do is to put together a 12 gauge cape gun. Rifled tube in the left barrel, sighted to the sights. A heavy load of "00" buck in the right barrel. No shots beyond 20 yards with the buckshot and it's devestating. The slug will do out to about 75 yards. You can't do this with a 20 bore because the 20 just won't carry the mail with buckshot.

"A heavy load of "00" buck in the right barrel. No shots beyond 20 yards with the buckshot and it's devestating. The slug will do out to about 75 yards." Ron Vella

Ron,

This is the most sensible advice on the use of buckshot I have read in several years. There are those who believe buckshot is effective out to 40 or 50 yards. Your 20 yard limit is spot on. Beyond that luck is the greatest factor.

All Good, Bill

Bill,
You and I both know that. Now all that we have to do is to convince the 90% of users who still take shots way beyond its effective range. I just seethe when I read articles by gunwriters denigrating buckshot as a great wounder. It's not the buckshot dude, its the moron behind the trigger!

The 1 oz Brenneke SP's sing out of my Uggie landing very well regulated on the front sight at 50 yards. And, it is a sure killer at that range.

Sorry about getting back to this thread.
PaulJ---This is a 20 gauge gun.
Weather permitting, I will test five dofferent slug types over the next three or four weeks and report back.
As the gun seems choked f/f, I may find a more than acceptable difference in them. I say that it seems f/f as I used a Galazan gauge and this may not truely reflect the choke.
Just for info. to those interested. I hunted deer and pig for many years in the South. Most was in South Carolina and dogs were used to run the deer to the ahooter. This provided good short range shots , usually within 20/40 yds.. Stands were usually 150/300 yds apart and with the heavy timber,where we hunted, all seemed safe.
BUT---I do know of a shooter that was wounded by OO Buchshot at a measured 155 yard distance.
I know that this is accendotal and not a scientific observation, but think that buckshot is lethal at a greater distance that some think. Not very accurate , but still with great power.
Best,
John

I converted a 20 ga to a paradox gun by getting the choke sections rifled and it works great with the correct conical (WR style) 500 grain slugs. I considered screw-in tubes but was concerned they would either screw themselves out, or screw themselves in so tight you couldn't get them out! The trick here is to use pretty aggressive rifling, a slow twist, and to clean out the leading after ever few shots. As far as regulation, I lucked out and didn't even have to refile the sights (well the gun used to be a 25 bore rifle way back before someone bored it out to a 20 ga shotgun).

You never know what will work until you try it. I want to pick up several brands of 12 ga. slugs to try in my combination gun. It put a pair of slugs about an inch apart at 100 yards, which would have encouraged me a lot had this tight group been less than a foot from the group from the rifle barrel.

Good luck, John, and keep us posted.

I really like the Cape gun idea. That seems like a great North American DG gun, for hogs, etc.

For what its worth Im currently "toy-ing" around with the same concepts. I initially figured to use only a couple Stevens that my local shop had on the used rack; but the manager, who is a good friend talked me into the Bakial guns as being cheaper and NEW. So far Ive shortened a Zabala 10 ga, to 25 inches and added a Remington 700 type hooded front sight and a single express "V" rear. I havent had a chance to take it to the range yet; but if nothing else its impressive on the wall...

Shortening the barrels was my first step. I wanted to be sure the barrels were opened to full cylinder bore. Also the barrels are a bit thicker in case I decide to have it fitted for rifled choke tubes. What I might give up in any accuracy, I make up for with reduced pressure and piece of mind. Besides the 24 to 26 inch tubes look and shoulder better for me.

My next to projects are a 12 ga. Ive got a three leaf express for the rear and Im thinking about an large ivory bead for the front. I figure theres lots of factory slugs to test before the handloading starts.

After that, I thought about a 410. Ive got a supply of the Russian steel case slugs to test. If it works at all, I was thinking about a low power scope with QD rings. All 3 of the rear leaves fold flat.

I am new here--Got 3/4 oz Barnes sabot up
to 3900 fps in my 12GA From Hell. Ed

Hubel458, this is a 'CIP board'(ie. Pmax < or = 65MPa for 12/70 gun), so what's the avg. gas pressure of this "hottie"? Can you elaborate on recoil force and accuracy of this load? Thanks.

Ed:
Better post a couple of URLs for background reading!
Cheers

Yep, Accuratereloading forums under 'Big Bores' pg 1.
I was looking at an Anglo "ball & shot" 12br and that 300yrd folded leaf......and those 750gr "mushroom-shaped" projectiles. Some of those yardages in that folded rack are just for show, right? I shot some darn good groups from 300m with express sighs, but that was using ZKK 602 300WinMag with Winchester 'Supreme' 190gr Silvertip BTs.

Jagermeister--Peak pressure is 35,000 psi.
Recoil is 125 ft lbs with sabot as gun weighs 25 lbs. Haven't shot for groups yet bad weather
here.We also got hardened Dixie Terminator
730 gr slugs out at 2700 fps.Here is pic of our case next to regular 12ga plastic case, which by the way can also be fired in our chambers.Ed.

I helped a friend work out using Sabots in a 12 SxS with rifled screw in chokes. It became quite obvious early-on the gun would not print in the same area, let alone spot, with each barrel, I think I'd have been quite shocked if it had. We tested each barrel to individually with several manufacturers sabots and settled on the Remington Copper Solids in 2 3/4" which are my personal favorites. Set up one barrel with a choke tube for 00 buck and the other for the sabot.

Paul harvested a deer on the opener and I 2 days later (see photo) with my fully rifled Hastings barrel atop my Browning Twelvette which is scoped with a Leupold Vari X III 1.5x5 using the Remington Copper Solid Sabot, have had consistent good sub 3" (many under 2") 5 shot groups out to 100 yards and took this doe at 65 yard with one shot. The shot is a shade high in the photo as she flinched but the angle was such it took out both lungs and was an easy track.

'The proof of the pudding is in the eating!'
(Is this a universal saying, or am I showing my colonial roots!)

Well done OW, sub-2inch groups at 100 yds is outstanding accuracy for a 12-bore. Sure would be nice to regulate both barrels of your friend's double though.

I am new to this board, but have been on several others.AR and NitroExpress.com, and was doing a search on slug guns when I found this board and this thread. I too have been giving a lot of thought to doing some mods to a double shotgun as some of you here have, installing good sights and setting it up for slugs. How one would do the regulating, asuming the likely prospect that the gun will not be regulated for slugs to begin with, has been the sticking point. It seems to me from my looking around that there are a lot of shooters who want this type of gun, and very few who have actually regulated one. I am interested in others experiences and ideas, and would love to experiment with this idea. The most intriguing thing I have found was a post on NitroExpress.com that some of you may have seen in which someone described a Stevens(I think) that he acquired which, to be brief, had been regulated by removing material from the insides of the muzzles to move the points of impact of each barrel and apparently achieved a pretty decent grouping. Has anyone here heard of this? I am puzzled as to exactly how this would work, but some have indicated that it seems possible. I would be interested in hearing any thoughts on this idea.

Check the taper of your barrels-most have a taper that will allow shot to intersect at a given range, so keep your slug shots at that range for reliable hits. If you need really long range, check your local regulations on what you are hunting, as well as if your gun is proofed for steel, then have someone load you some flechettes (steel darts, Vietnam era sniper suprises) with some dehydrated habenero pepper seeds in the hull with the darts. These will kill light skinned game (humans down) up to 300 yards away, and because they are built off of speed and not weight, you can let fly with both barrels at the same time if you have too. The pepper seeds (they flake and attach their meaness to the darts) allow you to track the wounded animal if it comes down to it, since there is little blood.

I was ready to do the same thing to a 12 ga, but found out that double guns have thinner barrels than singles and can't accept rifled tubes.

Tatwell:
Virtually all SxS double shotguns will 'shoot apart' with solid slugs. The exception is the purpose-built smooth-bore slug-gun, the most common being the Sabbati and Ugartechea offerings, and the rather less common Brignoli (..and there may be others).

If you can't find a purpose-built double slugger, the solution is to acquire a robust SxS double in good nick, knock a couple of inches off the barrels, effectively removing the chokes, and re-regulate for your favourite slug load. This is done by lifting the ribs, adding packing around the mid-point of the barrels to 'bow' them slightly, which effectively increases the convergence at the muzzles, then relay the ribs, fit sights, and enjoy!

A Wm Griffiths boxlock I shortened to 26-inches regulated perfectly with RC slugs when the muzzles were brought together at the shorter length and the ribs relaid. Didn't have to alter the packing at all!

BTW, a properly regulated SxS double should not 'intersect' at some specified distance, rather it should put left-barrel shots on the left side, and right-barrel shots on the right side, of a useful composite group at all practical ranges. I would suggest that a composite 6-shot group, consisting of 3 rights and 3 lefts, should fit into perhaps 2 inches at 25yds and 4 inches at 50yds with open sights to qualify as good. Smaller groups are better of course, if you can achieve it.

Mark, regarding your recommendations on using flechettes, I respectfully suggest that you should probably be locked up.