Steel shot in a fully choked 10 gauge

COREY

COREY

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I picked up an H&R 176 with a full choke. Been meaning to shoot it and decided to get ammo.

I know for a 12 gauge, unless the full choke is designed for steel not to do it as it may bulge the barrel. A buddy has said it is not a good idea too, but the problem is that the only easily accessible "cheap" 10 gauge ammo is steel. Only other stuff available is turkey loads at almost twice the price.

I have been doing some surfing and the recommendation on steel in a full choked 10 gauge is all over the place. Some say no way, some say only to a specific shot size (a Field and Stream article agreed with that), and some say do not worry about it.

Anyone here have any thoughts on this? Would love to here some opinions from CGNutters.
 
There is a thread right above posted as a sticky about steel shot...

I must have posted this 50 times now...

SHOTGUN BARREL ALTERATIONS FOR STEEL SHOT

Forcing Cone Alteration:

Factory shotgun barrels usually have a fairly short and abrupt forcing cone. The forcing cone is the tapered area just ahead of the chamber where the shell is contained. Altering the forcing cone, so it is one and one half or two inches in length, reduces recoil and improves the pattern density. Trap shooters and skeet shooters have been doing this for many years. It is a good benefit to the steel shot user as well.

Choke Alteration:
Choke designation from the tightest to the most open are:
Extra Full, Full, Improved Modified, Modified, Skeet II, Improved Cylinder, Skeet I, and Cylinder Bore.

Steel shot does not require the constriction that lead shot needs, to produce good patterns. In fact too much constriction, causes poor, erratic patterns, and in some cases, permanently damages the barrel. I have seen barrels bulged at the choke, I have seen barrels where the choke split right open, from using steel shot.

For steel shot, with thin barrels, chokes should be altered to at least Skeet II. Often, over & under, and side-by-side shotguns, are best altered to Skeet I and Skeet II chokes. Heavier barrels can be left at Modified choke but may see an improvement in the pattern if opened slightly.
 
Get your barrel threaded for chokes, if it’s too expensive get a super magnum in 12g, it’s gonna be close to your 10g performance wise...
 
Cheapest way to enjoy shooting steel in your ten is having the choke opened to about modified. Then shoot the heck out of it. If it were mine ( I have owned one) the steel on these guns is very thick in the barrel wall. I shot a lot of steel in mine with no issues. REMEMBER that was my gun and my risk so I don't need to hear about how dangerous it is.

Darryl
 
TheCoachZed said:
I have an H&R 10 gauge with full choke. The barrel is made of absolutely beastly metal to add weight to the gun. I've fired full power steel out of it for years with no problems. If it was a double, I might worry.
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It is really a roll of the dice. Some yes may be Ok but others may bell the barrel or worse
Opening the choke would be my recommendation as madtrapper suggested since the barrel will have to go to the US for tubes to be fitted
Cheers
 
As stated above, many older guns with full chokes have been fired with steel shot with no ill effect to the gun. A good friend of mine has been shooting a full choke Browning B2000 for decades with steel shot, and the barrel is fine. However, a trip to the patterning board revealed that the full choke caused the shot to "spray" excessively, giving some pretty wild patterns. We got the gun reamed out to IC and life was good...
 
3macs1 said:
It is really a roll of the dice. Some yes may be Ok but others may bell the barrel or worse
Opening the choke would be my recommendation as madtrapper suggested since the barrel will have to go to the US for tubes to be fitted
Cheers
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I've seen 12 gauges damaged both in online pictures and in person; my brother in law split a Winchester 1200 shooting steel on a beastly cold day. I've never heard of it happening with a 10 gauge, but I suspect it would be bad for double barrels due to their construction. I'd also think carefully before doing it with one of those old Mossberg bolt actions.
 
TheCoachZed said:
I've seen 12 gauges damaged both in online pictures and in person; my brother in law split a Winchester 1200 shooting steel on a beastly cold day. I've never heard of it happening with a 10 gauge, but I suspect it would be bad for double barrels due to their construction. I'd also think carefully before doing it with one of those old Mossberg bolt actions.
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I remember the first few years of steel we had no clue about the chokes and just kept using the guns we had. We also had no clue what a belled barrel was but I seen it happen on a full choke remington sp-10. It never stopped him from using it or did it do any further damage
I think a lot has to do with what you are feeding them also with respect to the larger diameter shot. Back then steel would not kill and we were using the largest we could find like T and F. Now it is rare to go over BB plus the wads are much much better
Cheers
 
If you actually thought about it for a minute why would it be any different than a 12ga with a full choke all gauges have chokes so it would apply to all gauges . Wow I guess I better go back to shotgun world where knowledge is the norm not the exception this has been on the books since 1992 and still gets .I’m sure the info can’t be that difficult to find .
 
struff55 said:
If you actually thought about it for a minute why would it be any different than a 12ga with a full choke all gauges have chokes so it would apply to all gauges . Wow I guess I better go back to shotgun world where knowledge is the norm not the exception this has been on the books since 1992 and still gets .I’m sure the info can’t be that difficult to find .
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Agree it is any gauge.

For me it is as simple as a lead pellet is soft and can deform if required to force it out a tight choke try doing that with a steel pellet
Plus lead never fused together if it got wet like steel shot does
I have had early steel corrode so bad it was an odd shaped slug coming out that could do a lot of damage also early steel shot wads were terrible and provided little protection, Better today but still not as good as the old lead designs were
I am pretty sure the pressures with the new steel powders are much higher also

Cheers
 
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struff55 said:
If you actually thought about it for a minute why would it be any different than a 12ga with a full choke all gauges have chokes so it would apply to all gauges . Wow I guess I better go back to shotgun world where knowledge is the norm not the exception this has been on the books since 1992 and still gets .I’m sure the info can’t be that difficult to find .
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I agree with you. But most things shotgun have been on the books for decades before 1992 and they still get debated over and over. Gauge, choke, load, balance, patterns, barrel length and many more are debated endlessly. I have been on the other site for a long time and the same things come up. There is very little objectivity in shotgunning. People form their own biased opinions based on their subjective observations and then post them on forums as fact. Sometimes the exchanges are mildly entertaining and other times they get old in a hurry. Either way, theses posts are here to stay.
 
cosmic said:
As stated above, many older guns with full chokes have been fired with steel shot with no ill effect to the gun. A good friend of mine has been shooting a full choke Browning B2000 for decades with steel shot, and the barrel is fine. However, a trip to the patterning board revealed that the full choke caused the shot to "spray" excessively, giving some pretty wild patterns. We got the gun reamed out to IC and life was good...
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Browning ok'd the B2000 for steel as long as you don't use the really big shot size. Below is copied from the Browning website.



2. WILL ACCEPT ALL CURRENT FACTORY STEEL SHOT LOADS EXCEPT THOSE WITH T, F, BB AND BBB SIZE SHOT:

The B-2000 and B-80 shotguns with conventional chokes (Non-Invector)
 
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