• This Forum is for adults 18 years of age or over. By continuing to use this Forum you are confirming that you are 18 or older. No content shall be viewed by any person under 18 in California.

Shooting steel shot in an old shotgun

AAAOA

Hey all,

I recently picked myself up an old toz 63 in 16 gauge, it's a Soviet sxs hammergun that was made back in the 60s and early 70s by Tula. It feels nice, but the language barrier has kept me from learning much about it. My main question is whether or not a gun of this age and origin would be safe to fire steel shot out of, provided I reemed the chokes out to modified (currently they are very tight full chokes which I understand won't take steel shot well)? Do any of you have experience with these old Soviet shotguns?

Any information about these guns or picking out nontoxic shot in these older guns would be greatly appreciated.
 
I suspect it will be pretty much impossible to find out what steel alloy was used in the barrels. Even with the chokes opened up I probably wouldn't. If it only saw very light use and you are willing to have really open chokes, maybe.. Extending the forcing cones would help too.
 
Darwin said:
Make sure it doesn’t have a nickel lined bore which means lead only as far as i know. The tight looking choke is probably the result of relatively short forcing cones. I have a Baikal O/U that looks full and extra full but patterns I/C and Modified as stamped.
Click to expand...

From the information I've been able to gather it appears the barrels should chrome lined. Unfortunately, the ranges here in VA are all shut down for the time being so I'll have to hold off on patterning it. I'll have to see how it patterns, I certainly don't want to open it up if it's already in the improved cylinder/modified range.

jonbearman said:
Define old?
Click to expand...

Roughly 50-60 years old. I understand that Remington claims all shotguns made since the 1950s are safe for steel shot as the barrel steel is of good quality, but that is most certainly a company by company sort of thing as steel shot is a pretty recent sort of change.

A more shot related question, does anyone know where copper shot could be found? According to the FWS website, 99.9% corrosion inhibited copper counts as nontoxic and copper is way cheaper than bismuth in terms of metal, plus it is soft enough to be of no risk in older guns. They also list copper coated iron as safe, which also would likely be safe in older guns assuming the coating is thick enough and still way cheaper than bismuth. That being said, I haven't seen it offered by any ammo manufacturer or in any reloading supply company. Any of you guys know anything about these other shot materials?
 
Hopkins said:
Steel shot is less easily constricted going down any barrel. If the barrels are not able to contain and constrict the shot column when fired a double gun will likely separate at the rib. Bismuth is pricey but the best price I've found is at Roto Metal.
Click to expand...
What Mr. Hopkins said. I'm a shotgun guy and never heard of copper shot--plenty of copper plated shot but no copper shot. (Just because I never heard of it doesn't mean it ain't out there however)
 
AAAOA said:
Hey all,

I recently picked myself up an old toz 63 in 16 gauge, it's a Soviet sxs hammergun that was made back in the 60s and early 70s by Tula. It feels nice, but the language barrier has kept me from learning much about it. My main question is whether or not a gun of this age and origin would be safe to fire steel shot out of, provided I reemed the chokes out to modified (currently they are very tight full chokes which I understand won't take steel shot well)? Do any of you have experience with these old Soviet shotguns?

Any information about these guns or picking out nontoxic shot in these older guns would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Steel Shotshells are a lot harder on a barrel,than lead or bismuth shot. If it is a cheap shotgun, small steel shot loads, like 4,3, 2's may be ok through a mod choke.Steel Shot is Harder than any Shotgun barrel,the wads are much thicker to prevent the shot cutting threw wad, scouring the barrel.
 
To the OP
You mentioned reaming the choke out some and it got me to thinking. If the bores are chrome lined, be sure to find a shotgun smith that has done a few of them.
Back in the late 80's or so, the big fad among competition shooters was to have the barrels backbored, ported and have the forcing cones lengthened or removed. We as a group spent millions having all of our old technology barrels "corrected". The guys that I knew that provided this service always charged more for doing these things to a Beretta because they had chrome lined barrels. They first had to hone the chrome out of the barrels before reaming because their reamers would not cut the chrome.
A few years after the craze started, the gun manufacturers started making their competition barrels to overbored specs because that is what the public wanted. This is also about the time that adjustable everything stocks appeared.
 
I have a late 70's H&R waterfowl special. I watch at gun shows for old stock bismuth, usually .50-.70 per round. I only need it on federal ground here for pheasant hunting(I don't duck hunt). A couple 10 round boxes last a while since I only run the Fed ground 5-10 times a fall. Even in my new shotguns I don't use steel, the dog has to make to many live bird retrieves, I have went to TSS. That stuff hammers birds.
 
I bought an old SXS back in 1975 or so. I loaded BB's from a BB gun. They were pretty hard. It scored the inside of the barrels. Still shot though.
 
Don't shoot steel shot in it until you have a good shotgun smith look at it.
Russia during the 60's and 70's was a totally different world.
You need to get the barrel and forcing cone dimensions as a minimum, if they are on the tight steel shot can easily cut through the wad and groove your barrel.
I have seen this happen, been shooting steel for over 30 years.
Steve Bair
 
I have seen way too many older shotgun barrels with lines running length wise from the owner shooting steel shot.
 
As stated above if you're not sure I wouldn't... It can do serious damage to the barrel.... If you load your own , Ballistic Products has a variety of shot for sale along with anything else you may need.... At least they normally do I am not sure with the crazy going on right now....
 
I was an active duck hunter at the time the steel shot regulation went into effect and
couldn't get positive answers on shooting steel shot in the old Model 12's.

This was a good excuse for me to quit duck hunting and spend more time quail hinting so
I got a relatively cheap used Mossberg for my sons and made peace with the ducks.

I'm leery of shooting steel unless the barrel was made specifically to withstand steel.
Unfortunately many of the fine old guns were produced way before we even heard
the rumors about having to use steel someday------some people can screw up an ice cream
cone,

A. Weldy
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Upgrades & Donations

This Forum's expenses are primarily paid by member contributions. You can upgrade your Forum membership in seconds. Gold and Silver members get unlimited FREE classifieds for one year. Gold members can upload custom avatars.


Click Upgrade Membership Button ABOVE to get Gold or Silver Status.

You can also donate any amount, large or small, with the button below. Include your Forum Name in the PayPal Notes field.


To DONATE by CHECK, or make a recurring donation, CLICK HERE to learn how.

Classified Ads

Forum statistics

Threads
164,874
Messages
2,185,523
Members
78,541
Latest member
LBanister

Share This Page

Back
Top