will my shotgun survive?

O

Ontario Hillbilly

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I have a Winchester mod 12 made in 1952, with a poly choke. I am starting to think about duck hunting, and the shortcomings I faced last year. Following advice found here and in my LGS I used #3 steel shot and used the poly choke on the MOD setting. A few people told me not to use larger shot or a tighter choke. The problem was the performance sucked, my effective range was 25 yards and many birds required a finishing shot. I would like to be able to choke it to IM or FULL, and use #1 or even BB in the gun. I hunt on lake Ontario and being able to reach 40 yards effectively will make a huge difference. Would the shotgun hold up to this abuse without being destroyed by the end of waterfowl season? I'm going back to school in the fall and can't buy a new gun this fall. Thanks
 
My opinion is you would be better served buying a gun or barrel designed to fire steel shot. Polychokes are lots of fun, but they were never designed to be fired with steel shot and I fear that it will eventually get wrecked. That combination of ammunition, gun and choke will never get you past 25 yards, and tightening up the choke will only result in increased wear on the choke.
 
Okay thanks, I hear all kinds of varying opinions on steel through the poly choke, some saying they are good with steel, some say the opposite. I think that at the minimum I will try to increase my shot size to #1 or #2, and staying at modified choke this year. The lethality of #3 and #4 was not sufficient, I had one bird fly off wounded, and I felt terrible.
 
Ok some advice from a gunsmith here I would recommend that if you do want to shoot larger shot I would open the choke up to ic If you go to full with steel your ether going to wear it out or worse have the end of your barrel turn into a flower,so yes you can move up in shot size just keep it mod. And under and you'll be fine,I did the same thing with one of my guns as a kid all the time and every once and awhile I bring the old gun out for kicks

Hope it helps
 
Good advice above, I had an original FN A5 cool gun I think it was 53 but it had a polychoke / Dial a Duck the oldtimer told me... Fun reliable gun in a semi auto config that resembled artillery, with the barrel action...
 
I make clean kills on ducks with 3 shot out to 40 yards with regularity, even 4 steel depending on velocity will be lethal at the range. The biggest hurdle for most new waterfowlers is patterning their loads and finding what will actually work in their guns. I have a love for older fixed choke and 2 3/4" chamberred shotguns so I probably put a bit more effort into testing loads and patterns and ranges to find what will work best for me and my guns. I would pattern a few different loads to see what works best for you. I am not saying switching to larger sized shot won't get the results you are looking for but either way pattern your gun at 20, 30 and 40 yards to see what it is doing.
 
Have you patterned your gun with last years shells and choke? What were your percentages at 40 yards? At the 25 yards you mentioned? It's dull work patterning, but you learn a lot about how your gun shoots. And for larger ducks I would agree to go up from #3 steel.
 
Old guns are made for lead...if you want to shoot steel on waterfowl buy a late model shotgun. The screw in chokes will say right on them: lead or steel.
Well at least Remington chokes do...if they don't state that then check with a gunsmith...but if it's a modern shotgun it'll work with steel.
 
I've killed more ducks with a ploy choked mossberg bolt than with my remington 870 with screw in's there are some guns that are to old to run steel (I like to think 1940 and under) as after ww2 steel shot became avalible to hunters and the guns were made tough enough, now as I said that's a general statement there's a lot of new guns that I won't run steel through.what I'm saying is you don't need a new gun to run steel you just need to know it's limits
 
Well - As above - spend a few dollars and pattern the gun - you may find that IC shoots better then mod. Also, 90% of the time, those misses are caused by operator error. The only way to remedy this is to practice.
 
Yep, unless you pattern that #3 shot & the MOD setting, you have no idea what's going on. My guess is that it will too tight. But only you can tell us.

I find #3 works great on ducks, out to 35 yards no problem. IF a good pattern hits them.
 
My duck and goose buddy shoots an 100 Remington with a 2 3/4" chamber and a Poly choke.
He did okay wit the mod setting , but as soon as we turned it to IC he was taking geese pout to 50 yards with #2 Winchester Dri-Locs!
Cat
 
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