Rifled slugs in a smooth bore

[Schmedly]

I just purchased a Remington 870 Express 12 gauge with a 28” smooth bore barrel and a Modified choke.

Can I shoot - Hornady Custom Lite Reduced Recoil Rifled Slugs - safely with this setup? Hornaday ads keep saying it’s for “rifled barrel slug gun(s)”.
I know the smooth bore will affect accuracy, but I’m only concerned about safety right now.

I have a couple of boxes of these rifled slugs and don’t want to give them away. I want to use them.

Although I appreciate the speculation and theory, I’d really like to hear from someone who has actually fired rifled slugs from a smooth bore with a modified choke.

Thanks in advance.

[Scorpion8]

Can I shoot - Rifled Slugs - safely with this setup?

The operative word is "safely", so yes, nothing should explode. A modified choke is not optimum for slug accuracy. Ideally you'd want a cylinder choke or improved cylinder. The modified choke will try to squish down a slug to the modified bore like it does with a load of shot. Oddly, rifled slugs are made for smooth bore shotgun barrels. Slug gun barrels come in rifled (to use sabot slugs) or smooth bore (to use rifled slugs) so am not sure about Hornady's statement. A rifled slug is what you want to shoot out a smooth bore barrel. Because the barrel is smooth, the projectile will not rotate appropriately unless it has rifling on it.

Accuracy should be fair, especially if you're just shooting jugs of water or somesuch as targets.

[jakebrake]

^^^^agreed. i'd take the choke out. not that it's going to explode, but, accuracy will suffer, and, it really can't be all that good for the choke.

Choke only takes a minute to remove. just sayin'.

[Schmedly]

Thanks for the information. I'll give it a try.

Just curious; won't shooting with the choke removed damage the internal threads?

[Scorpion8]

Just curious; won't shooting with the choke removed damage the internal threads?

Possibly. If you can find a RemChoke Cylinder Bore it would be better to swap that in for shooting slugs. Its possible you may get lead on the choke threads if you just remove the choke but lead is softer than barrel steel.