Can I shoot slugs out of my shotgun?

Question

MOSSBERG MAVERICK HOME DEFENSE PUMP SHOTGUN

Answer 1

Yes, but make sure the Gage and caliber line up or it won't work right.

Answer 2

Yes, you can. Make sure you buy the right gauge for your shotgun.

Answer 3

Yes if you have a smooth bore shotgun, and then only if it has a cylinder or improved cylinder choke in it.* If you have rifled barrel only shoot sabots in it.*

Answer 4

Ok to start with, lets correct darrin.

A rifled barrel is much like a rifle. It needs to shoot sabot slugs, not regular slugs.

A sabot is not a jacketed or half jacketed bullet, it is a .50 caliber slug encased in a 2 piece polimer shell. The shell is gripped by the rifleing, and then fly apart when the slug exits the barrel.

A regular slug has rifling on it, and is designed to stabilize itself through air turbulance, and high speed.

Shooting a rifled slug from a rifled barrel will most likely damage the rifleing on the slug, and give a very inaccurate slug. Also you may incurr higher pressures in a rifled barrel if you shoot rifled slugs, due to the tighter tolerances of a rifled barrel which is designed to shoot sabots.

And lastly Remington makes a slug that is not quite a Sabot as that it is not fully encase. It is the Buckhammer and uses a mushroom shaped slug that is designed to utilize tha rifling as opposed to the polimer utilizing the rifling.

So yes, go buy rifled slugs and shoot that 74 caliber man stopper.

Answer 5

Yes, but you need to figure out if your barrel is rifled, or smooth bore. A rifled barrel is made to shoot slugs... not just sabots. The reason that sabots are better to shoot out of a rifled barrel is because slugs are usually solid lead, and tend to deposit lead in some of the rifled grooves. Running a stiff wire bore brush with some powder/lead cleaning solvent through the barrel after use will usually remove the lead deposits. Sabots normally are either full metal jacket, or at least half jacketed, so they don't deposit lead in the grooves. Sabots are cleaner shooting, and more accurate than slugs, but substantially more expensive to purchase. When shooting a slug out of a smooth bore barrel, make sure that you either have a choke-less barrel in an open pattern, like improved cylinder or skeet, so that the slug won't get stuck in the barrel. If the gun has a threaded barrel for s******g in chokes, go down to the gun shop and pick up either a rifled choke, specifically for shooting slugs in a smooth bore barrel, or purchase a choke in an open pattern, like skeet, that will easily allow the slug to exit the barrel. If you shoot a slug, or sabot, out of a barrel that is too small to allow the projectile to exit the barrel, it will open the end of the barrel like an exploded cigar, belly (expand) the barrel, or blow a hole in the barrel wall.