13 thoughts on “Because, You Know, For No Particular Reason

  1. Nope, aim to give it a whirl though. Figure I have enough Bird shot laying around for a couple of tries. Don’t think I’d try that with 00 Buck.
    I have shot 12 Gauge slugs though. Not something you do repeatedly for very long.

    • That is why I asked, shooting cut shells is a lot like slugs in that respect. Your shoulder will start to really hate you after a few…

  2. according to my dear old dad, single or double barrels are best for this.
    the old hillbilly trick, go hunting for rabbits and spot a nice buck.
    he said they where best under 75-100 yards. I always kept a slug or two in my pocket myself. just saying of course. you just know those old guys NEVER shot a buck out of season ! but we did have a great Christmas dinner one year thanks to my uncle ken. lots of meat on the table after he went out for rabbits,,

  3. Make sure that you use a gun you don’t like as that is a great way to blow the barrel up when the shell hits the choke. It happened to me and other guys I know. There is a reason that this isn’t done much and even if you get away with it it is very inaccurate and ineffective. —ken

  4. I have heard that a similar effect can be achieved by adding a couple of drops of heavy lube oil or lard to the shot. Never tried it myself as I am not into shottys

    • I heard that too in 1968 and put some lard in some 20 gauge shells and on the third shot blew that pump gun up. It took awhile but I learned not to mess with shells. Bear Claw has it right. —ken

  5. We did this back in the day all the time. With screw in chokes, I probably wouldn’t unless they were out. With a slug barrel, try it. We shot these through single action Toppers, Remington 870s, 1100s, Mossbergs, The old SPAS 12 (single load), and the modified bore on doubles, if a dime wouldn’t go through the bore, I was a bit leery (full choke). Never had a blow up or bulge. And accuracy was decent at short ranges, 30 yards or so. That comment about a Glasser is spot on. Across the room ranges are rifle-like. Nothing like dumping that amount of energy in a target. Penetration on a soft target wasn’t very deep, maybe 12 inches or so. Nasty wound channel. We used #6 field shot mostly, although, some 7 1/2 dove shot ran through the bore, too.

    I’ve heard of shotgun tube blow ups, but I’ve never experience one. Never even a bulge. But I never reloaded for max-smoke, just normal pressures. I liked my hardware back then, no reason to punish it.

  6. Never work in my semi-auto Mossberg! Not worth the trouble. As Bear said, just buy slugs. Most of my loads are 00 buck anyway.

  7. I tried this a few years back and it worked well. Pretty spectacular terminal performance. I wouldn’t use them in anything tighter than an improved cylinder choke. One word of caution – keep them segregated – I was shooting clays recently and had a mysterious miss followed by a jam in my 870. He’ll if it wasn’t one of those cut loads that didn’t eject properly.

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