I just recently bought a Remington 870 Express 12 Gauge Pump action shotgun with 26" barrel and interchangeable choke tubes. My intent is to be able to use it for Trap shooting, Target shooting at 100 yds at the range as well as a HD gun. For target shooting using Sabot slugs, which one would be better to use, a dedicated Rifled barrel or a Rifled Choke and why?

Vinnie

If you run a rifled bore barrel and try to shoot shot threw it, the spinning wad/shot column is going to spun out/blown out, and you going to have holes in your pattern quickly.

On the other hand, a fully rifled barrel is better at stabilizing the slugs for your 100-yard shots.

Now the best choice for a trap/slug gun would have been an 870 with either a 28 (5'-10' and under) or 30" barrel (5'-11" and over), and an extra rifled barrel for the slugs, maybe even with a cantilever scope mount.

Of the two, I'm going to say dedicated rifled bbl as it's much shorter than the 28".

Though what I did was get a smoothbore slug bbl for HD and target shoot at 50yds with foster slugs.

Shooting sabots at 100yds is going to get expensive. Foster type slugs are much cheaper, and you won't likely be using the gun at 100yds for SD.

Well, the 26" barrel won't be all that suitable for home defense OR target slugging - in your situation, I'd pick up a 20" smoothbore slug barrel - preferably with chokes and rifled sights - and plan on shooting fosters instead of sabotted slugs.... Sabotted slugs are pretty expensive to punch paper with - and I've seen a few smoothbore 870s that'd shoot either Sluggers or SuperXs pretty darn good - how's $6 for 15 rounds as opposed to $12 for 5 rounds sound??? That's the cost of fosters vs. sabotted slugs, respectively - besides, a decent smoothy slug barrel(non-choked) can be had for $50 to $100 used - you're typically going to spend atleast $200 for a fully rifled barrel... Lastly, for defensive purposes, a smoothy slug barrel cannot be beaten - it'll pattern some form of buckshot well, and handle slugs well, also... I use a fully rifled barrel and sabotted slugs for my dedicated deer gun, but IMO, that's about all they're suited for - I have other shotguns for defense, trap, and bird hunting...

If I was setting up ONE shotgun for everything, it'd have a 28" ventrib barrel with remchokes, and a 20" smoothy slug barrel with rifled sights, and remchokes - and I'd have IC, Mod, Full, and Superfull choke tubes on hand - I could cover all my purposes with such a set-up...



  - georgestrings


PS - The Superfull would be for turkey hunting...