I recently purchased a t/c contender .45/.410 barrel with choke. My question is when do i leave choke in and out? Does the choke stay in when shooting .45 and .410 slugs and out when shooting .410 shot shells? or is it vise versa? something different?
thompson contender barrel use
- Thread starter kupperpooh
- Start date
Sorry, I’m interested in this thread. Don’t mean to hijack. Hopefully, my question will help the OP. Wouldn’t shooting slugs in the barrel without a choke wear out the threads? Wouldn’t you change it to some kind of slug or cylinder choke? I don’t know the ins and outs of shooting slugs through smooth bores.
The purpose of the choke in the barrel is to stop the spin of the shot and to try to prevent the hole in the center of the pattern that you typically see when you fire a shot charge through a rifled barrel. The Contender .45/410 barrel is a rifled barrel, not a smoothbore.
As Sawcarver said - the choke is for use with shot, not for use with .410 slugs or .45 Colt.
I've used one of these 10 inch barrels for years for squirrel hunting. Love using it, but I only use it with shotshells. Accuracy with .45 Colt loads runs way behind what I can get with my .45 Colt revolvers. I've never tried .410 slugs - never really saw a reason to.
As Sawcarver said - the choke is for use with shot, not for use with .410 slugs or .45 Colt.
I've used one of these 10 inch barrels for years for squirrel hunting. Love using it, but I only use it with shotshells. Accuracy with .45 Colt loads runs way behind what I can get with my .45 Colt revolvers. I've never tried .410 slugs - never really saw a reason to.
GotRDid
Gold $$ Contributor
I, too, have had the pleasure to hunt Bushytails with a borrowed .45 Colt/.410 shotshell Contender.
I took 5 of my permitted 6 Squirrels as high as 30 ft in fairly heavy leaf cover with #6 shot.
We did work with jacketed 250 gr factory Federal ammunition and as Radford states, accuracy was not as good as we had hoped. To be fair, I certainly would not have hesitated to use it on Whitetails from my stand with that ammo or perhaps a Handload developed for accuracy out to 25 yds. Part of the contributing factor may be the very long lead to the rifling that permits chambering the shotshells.
As long as you use a bronze brush/patches to clean the threads and lube them prior to reinstalling the choke for the .410s, you will have a long lasting, versatile barrel for generations of fun.
GotRDid.
I took 5 of my permitted 6 Squirrels as high as 30 ft in fairly heavy leaf cover with #6 shot.
We did work with jacketed 250 gr factory Federal ammunition and as Radford states, accuracy was not as good as we had hoped. To be fair, I certainly would not have hesitated to use it on Whitetails from my stand with that ammo or perhaps a Handload developed for accuracy out to 25 yds. Part of the contributing factor may be the very long lead to the rifling that permits chambering the shotshells.
As long as you use a bronze brush/patches to clean the threads and lube them prior to reinstalling the choke for the .410s, you will have a long lasting, versatile barrel for generations of fun.
GotRDid.
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