Anyone shoot rifled slugs through rifled shotgun barrel?

[DunnCoHunter]

I have been shooting sabot slugs my whole life in my 20 gauge shotgun with a rifled slug barrel. But in recent years it has been almost impossible to find a decent selection of sabot 20 gauge shells, and when you do find them they are super expensive. It has me tempted to switch to regular rifled slugs. Does anyone have experience with this? I don't want to wreak my barrel or really lose accuracy.

 

[nettereo16]

never done it, but heard of people who have and had it work pretty well. Concern is you might get a lot of lead in the rifling but it's worth trying out and reporting back!

 

[Unckebob]

In for answers. I have a piece of public land near me that I can hunt hogs in provided I use a slug. I can't hit squat with my 12 Gauges and want a 20 gauge.

I am trying to decide if getting a rifled barrel is worth the extra cost vs a single shot turkey gun < $250.

 

[HighUintas]

I did until 2016 when I moved to a rifle state. I shot a 12ga with lightfield hybred exp. Those were the bees knees. But they no longer make them.

From experience in shooting cast bullets from a lever gun, I would guess you would get bad leading unless the slug happened to fit your bore correctly and in that case 100yd accuracy would go to down the toilet.

What about loading your own sabots? I don't think it'd be too hard

 

[rayporter]

I did until 2016 when I moved to a rifle state. I shot a 12ga with lightfield hybred exp. Those were the bees knees. But they no longer make them.

From experience in shooting cast bullets from a lever gun, I would guess you would get bad leading unless the slug happened to fit your bore correctly and in that case 100yd accuracy would go to down the toilet.

What about loading your own sabots? I don't think it'd be too hard

same here.
it is definitely worth getting a rifled barrel if you will shoot slugs.

try several brands that vary in the slug make up to see what works in your gun.
[ plain slugs vs something with a wad attached, etc.] some lead up bad some dont.

 

[DunnCoHunter]

I did until 2016 when I moved to a rifle state. I shot a 12ga with lightfield hybred exp. Those were the bees knees. But they no longer make them.

From experience in shooting cast bullets from a lever gun, I would guess you would get bad leading unless the slug happened to fit your bore correctly and in that case 100yd accuracy would go to down the toilet.

What about loading your own sabots? I don't think it'd be too hard

I guess I’ve never thought about reloading them but I will have to look into it

 

[HighUintas]

I guess I’ve never thought about reloading them but I will have to look into it

If you going to go that route and even cast your own slugs, , I recommend finding a lightfield slug, dissect it and copy it if possible. They were incredibly accurate in my gun and seemed to kill the fastest of any slugs I'd used.

I'm sure cost would make it worthwhile. I haven't looked for a bit but I think the last time I saw some the sabots were like $20 for a box of 5? Crazy ....

 

[yfarm]

Rifled slugs are designed for smoothbore barrels, sabot for the rifled barrels. Twist rate of the rifling on the slug may not match the barrel rifling, reports I have read indicate poor accuracy. Also the muzzle velocity of the sabot also affects the accuracy depending on the twist rate. Remington rifled barrels reportedly shoot lower velocity ( under 1600) sabots best. Remington accutip sabots and older copper sabots were designed for those barrels so shoot the best. Lightfields also performed well from the reports I have read But are no longer made. Supposedly the brenneke sabots dont shoot well in the remington barrels. Drew for a nilgai hunt in Texas that requires muzzleloader or slugs and have a nib 1187 20 ga special deer gun I plan to use and found that I couldnt find accutips so started to research the issue. Hornady ssts are plentiful but supposedly arent as accurate as the lite version. Winchester sells a copper sabot bought a couple boxes of those and the hornady to try thru my gun. Look on ammoseek. Good luck.
I believe this shortage will only worsen as demand for slugs drop as more states ok straight wall rifle cartridges for deer hunting. Stopped at Brownells in Grinnell Iowa while traveling, had Hormady and Winchester but no Remington despite web site saying they did. Of interest, had stacks and stacks of 350 Legend for sale.
Was bidding on a case(100 rds) of accutips on gb, dropped out at $350, sold for $500 plus shipping. Crazy, $5+ a round for slugs.

 

[Unckebob]

Rifled slugs are designed for smoothbore barrels, sabot for the rifled barrels. Twist rate of the rifling on the slug may not match the barrel rifling, reports I have read indicate poor accuracy. Also the muzzle velocity of the sabot also affects the accuracy depending on the twist rate. Remington rifled barrels reportedly shoot lower velocity ( under 1600) sabots best. Remington accutip sabots and older copper sabots were designed for those barrels so shoot the best. Lightfields also performed well from the reports I have read But are no longer made. Supposedly the brenneke sabots dont shoot well in the remington barrels. Drew for a nilgai hunt in Texas that requires muzzleloader or slugs and have a nib 1187 20 ga special deer gun I plan to use and found that I couldnt find accutips so started to research the issue. Hornady ssts are plentiful but supposedly arent as accurate as the lite version. Winchester sells a copper sabot bought a couple boxes of those and the hornady to try thru my gun. Look on ammoseek. Good luck.
I believe this shortage will only worsen as demand for slugs drop as more states ok straight wall rifle cartridges for deer hunting. Stopped at Brownells in Grinnell Iowa while traveling, had Hormady and Winchester but no Remington despite web site saying they did. Of interest, had stacks and stacks of 350 Legend for sale.
Was bidding on a case(100 rds) of accutips on gb, dropped out at $350, sold for $500 plus shipping. Crazy, $5+ a round for slugs.

Good luck on the Nilgai hunt. I am in for it every year.

 

[DunnCoHunter]

Rifled slugs are designed for smoothbore barrels, sabot for the rifled barrels. Twist rate of the rifling on the slug may not match the barrel rifling, reports I have read indicate poor accuracy. Also the muzzle velocity of the sabot also affects the accuracy depending on the twist rate. Remington rifled barrels reportedly shoot lower velocity ( under 1600) sabots best. Remington accutip sabots and older copper sabots were designed for those barrels so shoot the best. Lightfields also performed well from the reports I have read But are no longer made. Supposedly the brenneke sabots dont shoot well in the remington barrels. Drew for a nilgai hunt in Texas that requires muzzleloader or slugs and have a nib 1187 20 ga special deer gun I plan to use and found that I couldnt find accutips so started to research the issue. Hornady ssts are plentiful but supposedly arent as accurate as the lite version. Winchester sells a copper sabot bought a couple boxes of those and the hornady to try thru my gun. Look on ammoseek. Good luck.
I believe this shortage will only worsen as demand for slugs drop as more states ok straight wall rifle cartridges for deer hunting. Stopped at Brownells in Grinnell Iowa while traveling, had Hormady and Winchester but no Remington despite web site saying they did. Of interest, had stacks and stacks of 350 Legend for sale.
Was bidding on a case(100 rds) of accutips on gb, dropped out at $350, sold for $500 plus shipping. Crazy, $5+ a round for slugs.

Thanks for the reply! I will check into the options mentioned above. Im shooting a mossberg 500. I have tried the Hornady SST many times and just can’t get them to shoot well in my gun. The federal powershok actually work great and are cheap but I can never find them.

 

[Dust Rider]

Brownells has Remington Accutips 20ga in stock as of Yesterday.

Try the Brenneke Green Lighting, works great in smooth or rifled. This is our current go to slug for deer and elk.
Lightfield Bucks Boars and Bears works in both smooth and rifled well.
My Savage 220 loves Barnes VOR-TX expanders 3” 250 grain.

Hornady SST = inconsistent results in my SBEII, Savage 220, Mossberg 500 and Remington 870. Could not get them to group in HR Ultra Slug.

 

[roosiebull]

If you going to go that route and even cast your own slugs, , I recommend finding a lightfield slug, dissect it and copy it if possible. They were incredibly accurate in my gun and seemed to kill the fastest of any slugs I'd used.

I'm sure cost would make it worthwhile. I haven't looked for a bit but I think the last time I saw some the sabots were like $20 for a box of 5? Crazy ....

Yeah, I just got 5 boxes, my favorite gun shop gave me Hornady sst 20ga slugs for 16$ a box but were marked 19.99$

It’s not a plinker, and I just bend over and pay the crazy price because they are accurate and kill well for a slug. Say you shoot 10 rounds a year just to verify everything is shooting well and dialed in (and map out trajectory at different ranges) and another box for hunting, it’s 60$ a year worse case to have a dialed in weapon for weapon restricted areas

My wife killed a stud blacktail this year in such an area, and killed her bull last year with a shotgun, it’s an easy to justify cost for me

I plan on building a new shotgun setup next year because it has a lot of potential value where I live, and once it’s sighted in, I only care to shoot it a few times per year.

It’s like TSS shot for turkey…. Stupid price but for the purpose, I can justify it… once the gun is patterned, and TSS shell equals a turkey (most of the time ) I’m not shooting a bunch of shells each year to plink

 

[rayporter]

20 Gauge Base wad slug (50 pack) – Fury Custom Bullets

www.furycustombullets.com

dont know anything about these, just happened on them.

 

[signing off]

If anyone wants to buy a H&R 20 gauge slug gun, I can include ammo. Hardly worth offering that since it's only a few rounds.
But no low baller, I know what I got
I'm disappointed to hear how rare the ammo has become because I think the 20 gauge sabot round is a good one. Seem to remember that the actual round was a muzzleloader pill usually. .50 cal like 250 grains.