Rifled shotgun barrel

[wright brothers]

Are these ammo sensitive?
Are shotshells ok through them?

870 express, fully rifled.
No screw choke.

 

[Mike Kohout]

Yes and Yes, Different sabot's/brands, react differently just like rifle bullets. And with shotshells they usually tighten up a pattern at a given yardage.
Mikey

 

[Cnsane]

Through bad first hand experience, rifled barrels throw shot in a doughnut pattern

 

[Gman]

Through bad first hand experience, rifled barrels throw shot in a doughnut pattern

That's what I witnessed watching a guy trying a fully rifled scattergun bbl shooting 3" turkey magnums #6 shot. It surely wasn't a tight pattern by any means.

 

[spaniel]

Always need to verify a certain brand of slug will shoot in a particular barrel.

Any rifled barrel scatters shot badly, been there done that in .22, 44Mag, and 12 gauge.

 

[snert]

With the barrel you described (a factory 870 RB) I found Rem Copper Solids and Brenneke slugs to shoot very well...but I am uncertain if either are made anymore?
I also had a cantilever model that shot these very well. Simple 2 3/4 always shot better and made these very capable 150 yard deer guns. The barrels generally had more accuracy than the trigger/recoil/stock
sight combination. Bearing down and resting the run proved it.

Buckshot? Never used it in a rifled barrel.

 

[Jeff Porter]

Specifically made for sabot slugs. Less than optimal for standard Forster type slugs and for and shot load. Get a smooth bore barrel shot.

 

[Syncrowave]

Never tried a rifled shotgun barrel, but back in the early '90s I found some kind of rifled choke tube (maybe from Gary Olen's Sportsman's Guide?), IIRC it was about 3 or 4 inches long. Tried it in my A-5 with regular (Foster) rifled slugs and it worked great. Never tried it with shot.

My Dad used to use Brenneke slugs in his Browning Superposed, he said it shot like a rifle to 100 yds out of the IC barrel.

Only peripheral to what you asked but FWIW

 

[UrsusMagnus]

Just use rifled slugs in your smooth bore. Don’t use them in a rifled barrel though

 

[wright brothers]

Whatever this gun shot it is filthy for it's low milage. Not the barrel so much as the action, Well kept, but dirty.
I might give it a soak.

 

[Jeff Porter]

Did the shotgun come with another barrel? Does this one have the rifle sights on it?

Do you want to shoot buckshot or regular slugs instead of sabots? I think I have a couple of 870 barrels ( one with iron sights smooth bore slug barrel, another is a 28" with removable chokes) in the stash that would do better than the rifled barrel for shot and normal slugs.

 

[MClark]

As others have said the rifled barrel gives a doughnut pattern.
Where I worked we took Taurus Judges and changed the barrel to 0.410 diameter with straight, no twist, rifling (to comply with ATF). Marked all over 410 only. Shot lik a typical cylinder choke.
One customer even had screw in chokes by another vendor.
Shop is now closed due to boss retirement

 

[wright brothers]

It is original, iron sights, short bbl, recoil pad, express magnum, matt or flat finish.
I deep cleaned it today and it is in real nice condition.
It's "probably" going to get used for home defense with shotshells.
I knew the original owner, he hunted the big bucks in special regs areas near the big city.

 

[madmixerman]

Give Lightfield slugs a try.

 

[snert]

Home defense? Just clean the living crap out of it, test fire it with 00 buck for reliable function and don't worry about a "pattern". Unless your "home" has 25 yard hallways or you are silly enough to go outside to "defend the home" you will be fine. Even with a rifled barrel.

But if you go hunting, sabots or Lightfields. Whole nuther world...

 

[gravelyctry]

Shoot sabots in a rifled barrel.

Don’t shoot lead slugs (I.e. Remington Sluggers or similar).

 

[Rickhem]

I got a rifled barrel for my Winchester 1200. This was back in the last century....LOL. Bought a box or two of a dozen or so different slugs to try, looking for that magic combination that shot knots at 100 yards. I drilled and tapped the receiver, and mounted a scope to help squeeze out whatever I could from that set-up. What I found was that almost everything shot inside of about 3 inches at 50 yards, and with eerily similar points of impact, so similar sight settings. Going to 100 was where things changed. For me and my setup, the Active slugs shot about 4" groups, and were readily available back then, so that's what I hunted with. The sabot slugs were new back then. I did shoot BRI sabots and they did well, but were at least double the price when you could find them. The BRI sabots would hit sideways from my Mossberg 500 smoothbore at anything past 60 yards, which is why I got the rifled barrel for the 1200.
I also observed that buckshot would print donut shaped patterns from the rifled barrel, so while that was an option from smoothbore slug barrels, it didn't work in the rifled barrel for me either. Didn't matter if it was double-O, Triple-O, or #4 buck, 2¾" or 3", it spread out to those donut patterns much faster from the rifled barrel. I wouldn't even use that for home defense, it was too erratic.
I've been shooting the Hornady SST slugs through that same barrel lately, using a 2½x scope, with really good results. They're expensive, but they shoot flatter at 100, and will hold under 3 MOA for me on the range.
For home defense, with shots being inside 25 yards, I'd think a smoothbore would work just fine. A buddy had an 870 smoothbore slug gun that was back-bored and magna-ported (pro-ported??) by JD Jones. That thing shot the Winchester foster slugs at 50 yards where all the holes touched. I know because I shot it myself. Those are $3/box slugs too. Buckshot would stay inside a piece of notebook paper at 10 yards.