Dumb rookie question: 870 Express Synthetic and slugs

[kimon]

I am a new owner of a brand new 870 Express Synthetic and I want to make sure I can shoot slugs through it. I believe I can but they have to be of the rifled kind. Have I understood this correctly?

I've read through sites and manuals and blogs and forums and they all talk about different barrel types and chokes. My simple shotgun has what appears to me to be a smoothbore barrel and from what I can tell from the documentation, a fixed cylinder choke. If I've interpreted what I've read correctly, I can shoot rifled slugs without an issue.

Any advice would be helpful

I'm sure the answer is blatantly obvious, just not to me.

Thanks!

[Chief Brody]

Not a dumb rookie question, just a rookie question haha, we all start somewhere. You absolutely can shoot slugs through your cylinder choke barrel.

Here's Vitaly's (the site's owner) very well-done explanation on shotgun chokes: http://www.rem870.com/2012/05/06/shotgu ... fied-full/

On the shelf at the store, you're likely to see two varieties of slugs - rifled and sabot. A sabot slug is designed to be very accurate out of a rifled barrel. You can shoot them through your smoothbore, but it would be a waste of money - they won't reach their potential unless it's a rifled barrel. Buy a few different brands of rifled slugs and see how they run through your gun. Be safe and have fun!

Steve

PS: I've found slugs do generally have the most recoil, so keep that in mind. You can find low-recoil versions, too. If you don't have a problem with it (I don't), no worries. Just go for it.

[Synchronizor]

Basically, a smoothbore barrel with a fixed cylinder choke can shoot any slugs safely. Like Chief Brody said though, some will not work well.


Shotgun slugs can be sorted into two major types: smoothbore slugs, and spin-stabilized slugs.


Spin-stabilized slugs need a rifled barrel to give them spin so that they fly straight. They are encased in a plastic spacer called a sabot that centers the sub-gauge slug in the shotgun's bore & engages the rifling, then falls away once the slug leaves the gun. For this reason, spin-stabilized slugs are often referred to as "sabot slugs". However, that term is somewhat misleading, since some slugs intended for smoothbore barrels also use sabots.



Smoothbore slugs, as the name suggests, are intended for use in smoothbore barrels. They do not need to be spun to fly straight; instead, they use concepts such as a nose-heavy mass distribution, an attached trailing wad, or an aerodynamic shape. Some older or specialty smoothbore slugs intended for very close-range use aren't stable at all.

Some of these slugs have a sort of reverse rifling molded in. This was an old idea meant to give the slugs some spin as they flew through the air (not, as is commonly believed, while moving down the barrel). It didn't work, but the raised ridges proved useful for allowing bore-sized slugs to easily squeeze through barrel bores & chokes, so both the feature and the term "rifled slug" are still in common use today for several types of smoothbore slugs.

The most prevalent type of smoothbore slug is the rifled Foster slug. It's a simple lead slug with a hollow base that moves the slug's center of mass toward its nose to stabilize it in flight. It's popular because it's effective, cheap to manufacture (one-step cast from un-alloyed lead with no need for a stabilizer wad), and the combination of the soft lead and the cast-in "rifling" allows it to be fired through most chokes.

[kimon]

Thank you both, very informative.

I had read the article on the chokes but, wasn't sure I was interpreting things correctly. I've learned to ask questions at the risk of sounding dumb to make sure I prevent myself from actually doing something that's dumb