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Posted: 5/3/2007 4:40:37 PM EDT
| do you guys recomend doing this? My friend is really not serious about shooting trap, or skeet or hunting with his used mossberg 500 with a 26'' barrel. I told him to saw it off to 18.5'' he wants to buy a whole new barrel and doesnt believe me that its possible to just saw it off. BTW if you were to just hack it off how would you do it straight? |
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Dude, new Mossberg/Maverick barrels are only $50-$75 . . . Why hack-up a perfectly good barrel when you can increase the resale value of it if he ever decides to sell it. With the barrel unprofessionally cut it will be of very little value to a prospective buyer; with the 18" and 26" barrel it will be a good seller. So no, i do not recommend hacking the barrel down. my .02 |
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Even better, wrap tape around the barrel as square as you can. Then run the saw blade all the way around the tape, one stroke at a time, and saw through it that way, all the way around, rather that from one side to another. When you get done you'll have a perfect and square cut that needs only a few file strokes to clean up. You can even do it this way with just a hacksaw BLADE, don't even need the whole hacksaw! I know, I've done it! 
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know anyone with a table saw? the kind with the blade that rises up out of the table?? get a metal cutting wheel for that. clamp the barrel to the table saw, level it..etc. then slowly raise the blade into the barrel with the hand crank. works like a charm and cuts square. |
a pipe cutter will squeese the bore in. I have a M37 Ithaca that someone cut off with a pipe cutter. I put the barrel in a lathe and cut it back to 18.250 inch to get rid of the compression. |
No problem if you are just using it to mark your cut. I used a pipe cutter to hack the barrel of a cheap 20ga to 18.5" and I noticed slight compression right at the cut that I took care of with some fine sandpaper wrapped around a dowel. |
None. As long as it is OVER 18" as measured from the breech face, you're golden. (Wouldn't hurt to doublecheck your state's laws, but I can't recall ever hearing of a state that had a longer minimum shotgun barrel length than 18".) |
I have to agree, also, if you cut it, you will have zero choke. as in none. I much prefer to have an 18" barrel with an improved cyl choke. It gives much better patterns IMO. |
That's why you use the pipe cutter, to get back some "choke". Seriously, at a minimum you'll want to have your forcing cone lengthened or your barrel possibly "back bored" or else your gun will most likely shoot perfect donut patterns with shot. By donut I mean not one single pellet in the middle of the circle. I had an 1100 once that the previous owner had sawn off to a legal length. It shot perfect donut patterns of buckshot at 10yards that just barely stayed on an IPSC/USPSA target. I paid to have the barrel back bored and the pattern returned to a more normal Cylinder-type pattern with pellets in the middle of the "pattern". On a side note, that's yet another gun that for the life of me I can't remember why on Earth I ever sold it, but I did. DOH! Oh, and you'll likely want to pay a gunsmith to install some sort of a front sight for you again. Of course with the money you'll spend on cutoff tools, reblueing and gunsmithing to make it pattern decently you will be money ahead to just find a nice used $50-75 18" factory barrel and be able to swap them whenever you desire. |
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