How can I

[carbonhunter]

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most shot barrels are smooth bore and 26 - 30" inches long. smooth bore slug barrels are 21 -24" long and usually have a set of rifle sights. a rifled slug barrel has rifling in the bore and 21- 24" long with rifle sights or a cantilever scope mount attached. hope this helps, h.h.

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Pretty much

[gobblergetter15]

Also. it should say on the barrel.

[Shaun_300]

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most shot barrels are smooth bore and 26 - 30" inches long. smooth bore slug barrels are 21 -24" long and usually have a set of rifle sights. a rifled slug barrel has rifling in the bore and 21- 24" long with rifle sights or a cantilever scope mount attached. hope this helps, h.h.

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that's the answer right there. open the action, look down the barrel, if it has rifling in the barrel, it is a slug barrel (designed for smooth slugs) if it is smooth, it is a bird barrel.

[AJ]

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...open the action, look down the barrel, if it has rifling in the barrel, it is a slug barrel (designed for smooth slugs) if it is smooth, it is a bird barrel.

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Actually not true. Until fairly recently (10-15 years or so), slug barrels were smoothbore also. So a smooth bore will not tell you what type it is. A rifled barrel will definately be a slug barrel.

A bird barrel will have only a bead sight and possibly a vent rib. A slug barrel will have open sights or a scope mount.

[Shaun_300]

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It is from 1988 so how can I determine what barrel it is cause I was told that if a rifled slug goes threw a smoothbore it will damage the barrel, and I don;t want that. Thanks for everyones help

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i was taught that it was the opposite. if you shoot a rifled slug through a rifled barrel, it may damage it. i think the rifling is designed to put the spin on smooth slugs, and rifled slugs were meant to be shot through a smooth barrel, because the rifling on the slug itself will create the spin when traveling down the smooth bore barrel.

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the whole gun has a scope mount, what do u mean by open sights?

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i am pretty sure that the scope mount would be on the barrel. open sights would mean it has a rear sight, the one shaped like a V. and it has a front sight. a bead sight is on a bird barrel, there is only a front sight on these barrels. it is usually just a round sight that looks like a BB.

[Shaun_300]

nope, thats a slug barrel.

[AJ]

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I was told that if a rifled slug goes threw a smoothbore it will damage the barrel

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Nope, not hardly. The only smoothbore that should not be used for slugs is the Mossberg 835 smoothbore barrel. The reason for that is the huge bore that it has. On a standard 12 ga smoothbore you will not damage the barrel by using rifled slugs, even if it has a modified, or full choke.

[lil hunter]

comppro, those are open sights, so thats a slug barrel. If it's from 88, i'm assuming its a smoothbore, so any rifled slug will work fine in it.

[AJ]

The barrel you have pictured above is a slug barrel. You can look down the bore and see if it has rifling. If it does not have rifling, it can only be used with buckshot and/or rifled slugs. You can not use sabots. This is not due to safety, but for accuracy. The sabots must be spun for accuracy. A smoothbore will not stabilize a sabot. A rifled slug does not spin. The rifling grooves actually make space for the slug to compress as it goes into the forcing cone and choke in the bore. The way they are designed (nose heavy) is what makes them fly correctly.

If you want to shoot turkeys or other upland, you should get a smoothbore barrel with interchangable chokes.

[WNY_Whitetailer]

Also if that barrel was a fixed choke barrel it should indicate the choke restriction on the side somewhere. Seeing as there are rifle sites I would assume that there would be no indication of choke constriction anywhere on the side of the barrel.

[Tominator]

I suppose you could shoot turkey loads out of a slug barrel, but I don't think you'd want to.

If your barrel is rifled, I would think the wad cup on your turkey loads would be spun and thus would do wacky things to your shot pattern.

If you barrel is not rifled, take it out and pattern it from 30 yards or so, see what kind of hits you get. I'd venture to say you'll have a pretty open pattern from a slug barrel.

[AJ]

It won't hurt anything to shoot them in a slug barrel except your wallet. An improved cylinder choke is going to have too sparse of a pattern to be effective at more than 20 yards.

If your barrel is rifled, you will have a weak center ring in your pattern. Again it will not be ver tight but it will be even worse since the shot column is spinning. Centrifigal force will pull the shot to the outside ring. Your effective pattern would be like a donut.

[AJ]

The barrel you have pictured above has a full choke?

[Shaun_300]

wow, thats a first, all the slug barrels i've saw are all Improved Cylinder.

[Shaun_300]

no, its definetly a slug barrel if it has sights like that on it. AJ, how is the barrel measured for finding the choke size? do they use an inside micrometer? maybe Gander mountain was off on a measurement or something, unless they make slug barrels in full choke...