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Does anyone here own a shotgun with a rifled barrel, or know of someone who shoots such a thing here in the UK? I would be interested to hear how much difference they make when firing slug and also if there is a perceived or measured impact on shot patterns.

I think I still have a Pape Paradox gun somewhere and from my notes that I've found on testing it the rifling in last few inches of barrel certainly made a difference when shooting ball.

ovenpaa wrote:Does anyone here own a shotgun with a rifled barrel, or know of someone who shoots such a thing here in the UK? I would be interested to hear how much difference they make when firing slug and also if there is a perceived or measured impact on shot patterns.

Aren't they section 5????

They should be Section 1 if bolt loading

Not sure it needs to be B/A, and as long as it is not a Pump or Semi Auto it is no different to a rifle chambered in 20.6x76 as far as I know.

ovenpaa wrote:Not sure it needs to be B/A, and as long as it is not a Pump or Semi Auto it is no different to a rifle chambered in 20.6x76 as far as I know.

As Ovenpaa said as long as it isn't a pump or semi. So a B/A, L/A or single shot would be OK.


The latest issue of Shooting Sports has a article on a 12g rifle or rifled shotgun, if you like. I'll have look and see what it says about grouping and shot patterns.

A friend of mine had an English double that was rifled I can't remember the name at the moment. It was 12 bore and he used it sucessfully in Africa on a couple of occasions. He claimed very good results at distances up to 100 yards. Unfortunately he died a few years ago and I don't know what happened to his gun.
I have also seen a Lanber double that had rifled barrels in a shop in Hereford some years back. It had been ordered espcially for a vicar who stalked roe with it.


P.S. It might have been a Hollis.

From the article the rifle (shotgun?) is a Savage 212 with shallow rifling (1:35) and a 22 inch barrel.

Accuracy with factory Winchester (445gn 1518fps) was 1.75" @100yds. Best was 0.5" with Federal Sabot Ammo (457gn 1444fps), worst with 2.75" was Interstate ammo with Gualandi (485gn) type solid.

With a standard No 7 load an increase of only 15% in pattern size was claimed but didn't state what the patterning was like. IIRC a rifled barrel tends to give doughnut shaped pattern.

Edit: Review of the Savage 212 http://www.chuckhawks.com/savage_212_slug_gun.htm and http://www.shootinguk.co.uk/gunreviews/ ... g_gun.html

Isn't the max calibre 20mm for section 1 ? What's the metric calibre of a 12 bore ?

scrap this question -- just remembered 12 bore = .729" therefore ok.

A 12 bore barrel ID is around 18,5mm/ 0.725" from memory.