Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Never use a bore scope on a rifled shotgun barrel

If you do - you may end up spending hours to getting the lead fouling out of the barrel !

Lead deposits on top of lands in vertical stripes that you can't really see without a borescope - I was getting ready to bore coat mine to cut fouling...
Then I found out why it was fouling! I wasn't getting all the lead out when I thought I was.

45 or so minutes later, and a good amount of hoppes, JB compound, and copper brush action and it's now clear and ready....
I didn't think I was going to get it out of there for a bit.. wow

Using sabot-style ammo will significantly reduce your issues... I've had some shotgun barrels come in so leaded up that I could have sold the residue and gone to the bank to make a sizable deposit..

I have never seen soooo many chips of lead come out of a barrel... wow

Before last night I wouldn't have believed it could get that much in a barrel

I thought everyone knew that you shot sabot slugs ONLY in a rifled barrel.

I knew that you should ony shoot sabot in a rifled barrel.
I never knew a rifled barrel should only shoot sabot.

Chore boy copper scrub pads will really get the lead out of a barrel when having problems shooting cast bullets. I wonder if a few strands wrapped around a tight fitting copper brush would have cut the work time in half? A few wet patches with kroil followed by the Chore bore treatment may be worth a try to really get it down to bare metal.

I'm going to re-try sabots after re-coating it with bore coat, nobody stocks sabot'd slugs around so I'll have to order them.

I had tried it and on a bet from a friend I put plain old slugs down it and some of them performed better than the sabots, it doesn't hurt the barrel provided you don't let it lead foul too bad - but this isn't worth it.

I have a Mossberg 500 with two barrels for a reason. Foster type slugs are for smooth bore, and Sabot slugs are for rifled barrels. Sabots are more expensive, but more range and accuracy due to the faster spin. Sabot slugs were DESIGNED to get the most out of a rifled barrel. (This does not mean you can't shoot fosters in a rifled barrel, but it will lead up bad.)

That I can attest to that, lead slug in a rifled barrel.. way bad leading, once it starts building up you have your work cut out for you.

There are plenty of sabot'd slugs these days, from the research I did the Barnes sabots and Federal sabots are supposed to work great in my barrel so I'll start there. Neither existed when I got the barrel.

The barrel is a E.R. Shaw double thick shotgun barrel that HK had made up when they were importing for Benelli. It's on a Super Black Ealge - and is a seriously bad x rig. The stupid thing groups 1-2" with regular winchester 1oz slugs, and 4-5 with BRI sabots (what I tried back in the day)... so I stuck with the lead and paid the price for it leading up... like I said, time for a change.