Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns Rifled slug barrel question

Shooting a Rem 11-87, Hastings Paradox barrel with Bushnell Trophy red dot & Federal 2-3/4 1-oz slugs.

At 50 yards the first 10 rounds or so are 3-4" but then it goes to pot & I need to clean the barrel.

Is that pretty much normal for sabots?

I've never cleaned mine much at all. Once a year. Usually just because I fealt bad. Is that a cantilever barrel? If not, that's where the 3-4" groups might be coming from. Try a couple different slug brands. That might help too.

You should be getting better results than that. Make sure EVERYTHING is as tight as possible. Scope mount, barrel, etc.

Do you have a good rest? Slug guns recoil a lot and if they are not rock solid on the rest, patterns obviously will suffer.

Are you using sabots are slugs? I would use SABOTS. They are more expensive, but they are designed for rifled barrels and are what you need to be shooting. Yes, they are more expensive, but they are what you need in that set-up.

Google "Remington 870 barrel shim" and see it that helps.

Good article in the American Rifleman about the Browning A-Bolt 12 gauge. 3" groups at 100 with everything. Barrel is threaded to the receiver, bedded, etc...

Not all slugs and or sabot rounds shot well out of rifled barrels, in fact for me the sabots shot worse.

I have a Benelli SBE with a HK slug barrel (double thick douglas barrel) and it hates sabots, but shoots 1 oz. winchester slugs like a dream.

Do yourself a favor and buy some Lightfield XTP slugs. My brother and I tried several brands but these are by far the most accurate and very, very consistent. 3-4 inch groups at 50 yards with a slug barrel is simply not acceptable. Also, the Lightfields are devastating on deer. Check out the reviews at Cabelas or other places.

What Hastings currently recommends
http://www.ruag-usa.com/products/slug/rottweil-laser-plus/

Polymer sabots do not work well in hot barrels.

If you mean by Paradox barrel, the Hastings which only has rifling at the choke, then 3-4" is what I got with my Rem.1100.

The rifling in mine still has lead and plastic smeared in it from the last time I shot it(25 years ago).

Look at your Hastings barrel again, every Hastings slug barrel I have ever seen (going back 30 years) was fully rifled.