I have been thinking of buying a 870 rifled slug barrel for this years dear season in my back yard and the thought hit me of shooting 00 buck out of it for home defense. 1st question-can I do this with out harming the rifling inside the barrel, and 2nd-what kind of pattern would that make out to say around 30 yards, from one end of our house to the other is about 90ft. thanks
Randy

The shot cup should protect the rifling.
The pattern will be large & donut shaped though.  The rifling will put some spin on the shot cup & centrifical force will spread the buckshot into a wide pattern.  30yrds is about as far as I'd want to push buckshot anyways & that's out of a standard smoothbore, not a pattern spreading rifled barrel.

The regular rifle sighted smooth bore slug barrel is good to go though.  That's what I have on my 870 Wingmaster (with tritium sights for low light use).  The old smoothbore slug barrel is improved cyl choke.

This question comes up ATLEAST once a month... In short - although it won't immediately damage your barrel, it won't do it any favors, either... It will likely hurt slug accuracy after not all that many rounds of shot... 2nd - the pattern will be terrible - mainly because the shot string will be swirling - which will cause shot pellet deformation, amongst other patterning problems...



I'd advise you buy a used smoothbore barrel - they can be had in decent condition for around $50 many times...


  - georgestrings

Thanks guys, thats what I needed to know.