# Couple shot gun questions



## alleyyooper (Jul 6, 2007)

Smooth bore or rifled barrel in a slug gun?

Advantage of 12ga. over a 20ga. in a slug gun.

 Al


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## Ron Gilmore (Jan 7, 2003)

Ok first off a rifled barrel with proper slugs will shoot better groupings and longer ranges. However, the smooth bore with rifled slugs do produce killing groups out to 75 yards for most people. So the real question becomes what do you want and need in regards to range?

I own a 870 Rem that I have a rifled barrel for as well as a rifled choke tube for the smooth bore. It is set up as a turkey gun with scope. Since I did not want to switch things around I purchased a receiver mount for the scope and the rifled choke tube which is about 5' long!

My testing found that this setup produced better groupings than the rifled barrel consistently! I sighted the gun in at 100 yards using Win sabots in 2 3/4" shells. This allowed me to shoot at any range under 100 out to 125 without any change in aim point on the animal.

The rifled barrel did not produce the same results nor as tight a group. In part I do believe it is because the twist rate on the choke tube was a bit more increasing the the rotation.

My experience was with 12 ga only, however a couple friends used 20 ga smooth bores but again limited shooting to 75 yards and under. The fact that the slugs are not rotating as fast causes destabilization faster.
Prior to the choke tube, using a smooth bore with rifled slugs, I was limited to 75-80 yards before the grouping and drop required to much Kentucky windage! The area I use to hunt had openings out to 150 yards from our stands. But the first couple years, I killed 7 deer with the smooth bore out of other stands!


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## crosshunt (Feb 10, 2009)

i would go with the 12ga and smooth bore. i aslo got the 870 set up. it has the 28" shotgun barrel but i also have a smooth bore slug barrel. i think every slug gun i shot has been a smooth bore and they work great. mine is shooting about 2" high at 25yds and makes it dead on at about 85yds. mines open sites though so that limits the range. deffently go with the 12ga though, they make awesome deer guns. :beer:


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## Kelly Hannan (Jan 9, 2007)

I wouldn't trade my 175 yard rifled barrelled slug gun. Although shells are pricey. I have killed many deer with a smooth shot barrel shotgun out to 125 yards. I did alot of practicing, so I knew exactly how much hold over etc.

Several friends shoot 20's, either makes a good deer gun. If you don't mind the price of shells go for the rifled barrel. I shoot Hornady SST, 14.00/box of 5


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