Which ammo for smoothbore shotgun? Rifled slugs or sabot slugs?

Question

Hunting Adirondack black bears

Answer 1

Either slug can be fired through your smooth barrel, but a rifled slug cannot be fired through A rifled barrel. Rifled slugs have grooves on them, and it will hurt a rifled barrel, where the sabots wont hurt it. A rifled slug has better accuracy in a smooth barrel, which means longer ranges. Most slugs are good to aobut 100 yards, but new improvements made it possible to shoot out to 200 yards with a good slug and a good rifled barrel.

Answer 2

Rifled slugs. Without a rifled barrel most sabots, being long, will destablise and tend to yaw, veer of course or even keyhole(hit sideways).

As to the 'rifling' on a rifled slug it is a bit of a gimmick. The rifling does very little for accuracy. It is pretty much the short fat, nose heavy construction of it(flies nose forward like a badminton shuttlecock), how well it seals off the gas in the barrel, and just plain whether your smoothbore likes it that determines accuracy.

And accuracy while workable to 35-40 yards or so, or 50 or 60 if you are lucky, is not that great from a smoothbore. Anybody who is taking game at 80 paces say with one is probably 12 years old for that many paces is what I'm saying.


That said there are some sabots that work 'okay' through a smoothbore, and even a couple of rare breeds made for smoothbore.

You will have to test them out yourself, both rifled slugs and sabots to see what your gun likes.

Answer 3

Either or. Rifled slugs are an attempt to stabilize a slug in a smooth bore. Sabot, just means it is enclosed in a "jacket" of another material. Sabot's tend to travel at higher speed than rifled slugs. I have used both on black bears and deer with similar results. Just remember the limitations as far as range. I kept it to 100 yards or less. Some of the new slugs though, are supposed to be good out to 200 yards. If I'm hunting at ranges of 200 yards, I'm gonna use a rifle with a good scope. not a shotgun. Good luck

Answer 4

RE:
Which ammo for smoothbore shotgun? Rifled slugs or sabot slugs?
Hunting Adirondack black bears

Answer 5

I started using Sabot slugs last year and they shoot great. A guy told me that Sabots are for rifled barrel, but the box said either smooth or rifled.

Answer 6

I suspect you're young and showing it. Except for the old Explora and Paradox type ball-and-shotguns, which had some popularity in India and Africa a century ago, there were no rifled shotgun barrels as recently as just a few years back. Foster and Brenneke slugs were designed with smoothbores in mind. See what patterns best in your gun.

Answer 7

Rifled slugs were made for smoothbore shotguns.

Answer 8

Remington Brand has great Rifled slugs for smooth bore shotguns. They are called Slugger.** They recommend you only shoot them from a shotgun that has improved cylinder choke only.*

Answer 9

rifled slugs will be accurate for further and have a flatter trajectory, Sabot's will have better penetration on impact

Answer 10

What..Adirondack Black Bears Huh......No Paintball gun?