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A slug barrel is a shotgun barrel that is designed primarily to fire slugs instead of shot, and is usually rifled. A shotgun with such a barrel is often called a slug gun.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(April 2015) |
A slug barrel is a shotgun barrel that is designed primarily to fire slugs instead of shot, and is usually rifled. A shotgun with such a barrel is often called a slug gun.
When slugs are fired in a standard, choked barrel, the slug is deformed by the choke as it exits. The degree of deformation is most acute with fuller chokes, which were among the most widely used in stock shotguns up until the 1980s and 1990s. Early shotgun slugs were "rifled" with deformable fins cast into the outside of the soft lead slug, which allowed the slug to swage down to fit the choke. With an open choke, the reduction in diameter is minimal, so accuracy does not suffer much; tighter chokes, however, deform the slug enough to impact accuracy significantly, and the impact of the slug on the choke (at velocities around 450 meters per second (1500 feet per second)) could also stretch the barrel with repeated firings.
The first slug barrels were cylinder bore barrels (no choke) outfitted with rifle sights, which are far better suited to accurate shooting of still targets than the standard bead sight used for shooting small, fast moving targets with shot. Most pump-action and semi-automatic shotguns have barrels that can easily be changed in under a minute without tools, so having more than one barrel for a single shotgun is common[ citation needed ]. With the addition of a slug barrel, the standard shotgun used for bird hunting, skeet, or trap shooting can then be used for hunting medium to large game, such as deer or elk at ranges of over 100 meters (109 yards).
The next step was the fully rifled shotgun barrel by Hastings, a manufacturer of aftermarket shotgun barrels. Hasting's Paradox shotgun barrels were offered as aftermarket replacements for the most common brands of pump and semi-automatic shotguns and they quickly became popular with slug shooters. Hastings rifled shotgun barrels are designed for firing slugs and are not to be confused with barrels of the Holland & Holland Paradox gun. "Paradox" has been used by Holland & Holland of London since the late 19th century to describe large bore guns with the last few inches of the barrel rifled with a special "ratchet" style of rifling. Holland & Holland purchased the rights to the Paradox gun from the inventor, Col George Vincent Fosbery VC. They chose the name "Paradox" because shotguns are defined by their smoothbore barrels, and a "rifled shotgun" was something of a contradiction in terms. Holland & Holland's Paradox and Nitro-Paradox guns are not slug guns as they fire standard shotgun shells and cartridges with special Paradox bullets fully interchangeably. [1] Under normal circumstances, any firearm with a rifled barrel over 12.7 millimeters (.50 inches) is legally considered a destructive device in the United States. A BATFE ruling was obtained stating that a firearm designed to fire shotgun shells that was converted to fire shotgun slugs with the addition of a rifled barrel was still a shotgun, and thus not a destructive device. Now many manufacturers offer shotguns for sale with rifled barrels already installed. Bolt action and single shot break-open designs are particularly accurate, and with modern saboted slugs designed for use only with rifled barrels, the modern slug gun offers nearly the accuracy of a typical rifle, though at shorter ranges.
The widespread availability of rifled shotgun barrels was quickly followed by the introduction of special slugs designed for use with the rifled barrels. The short, fat, unaerodynamic Foster slug was no longer needed for its inherent stability; new slugs were smaller in diameter, usually around 10.16 to 12.7 millimeters (.40 to .50 caliber) (compared to the 18.5 millimeter (.73 inch) bore diameter of a 12 gauge), and carried in a plastic sabot. The saboted slug had half the frontal area of the old slugs, which translated to less drag, and greater penetration. Lighter, faster slugs were also possible, allowing for a flatter trajectory and longer range. With the wide selection of barrels, shotshells and slugs, the modern shotgun is a tremendously versatile tool.
While shotgun slugs were originally developed as a convenience to the hunter who already owned a shotgun and did not want to purchase a rifle for hunting game, heavily populated areas now allow large game hunting only with shotguns. The limited range of the slow, heavy slug—even a saboted slug—compared to a rifle bullet offers a safety advantage by limiting the maximum range. While buckshot is capable of taking deer-sized game, it is only effective at short ranges, generally under 50 yards (46 meters). A properly selected barrel and slug load can increase the range to 150 yards (137 meters) or more.
A double-barreled shotgun is a break-action shotgun with two parallel barrels, allowing two single shots to be fired in quick succession or simultaneously.
A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting, with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves (rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with both hands and braced firmly against the shooter's shoulder via a buttstock for stability during shooting. Rifles are used extensively in warfare, law enforcement, hunting, shooting sports, and crime.
A shotgun is a long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge known as a shotshell, which usually discharges numerous small pellet-like spherical sub-projectiles called shot, or sometimes a single solid projectile called a slug. Shotguns are most commonly smoothbore firearms, meaning that their gun barrels have no rifling on the inner wall, but rifled barrels for shooting slugs are also available.
A bullet is a kinetic projectile, a component of firearm ammunition that is shot from a gun barrel. They are made of a variety of materials, such as copper, lead, steel, polymer, rubber and even wax; and are made in various shapes and constructions, including specialized functions such as hunting, target shooting, training and combat. Bullets are often tapered, making them more aerodynamic. Bullet size is expressed by weight and diameter in both imperial and metric measurement systems. Bullets do not normally contain explosives but strike or damage the intended target by transferring kinetic energy upon impact and penetration.
A cartridge or a round is a type of pre-assembled firearm ammunition packaging a projectile, a propellant substance and an ignition device (primer) within a metallic, paper, or plastic case that is precisely made to fit within the barrel chamber of a breechloading gun, for the practical purpose of convenient transportation and handling during shooting. Although in popular usage the term "bullet" is often informally used to refer to a complete cartridge, it is correctly used only to refer to the projectile.
In firearms, rifling is machining helical grooves into the internal (bore) surface of a gun's barrel for the purpose of exerting torque and thus imparting a spin to a projectile around its longitudinal axis during shooting to stabilize the projectile longitudinally by conservation of angular momentum, improving its aerodynamic stability and accuracy over smoothbore designs.
In guns, particularly firearms, caliber is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel bore – regardless of how or where the bore is measured and whether the finished bore matches that specification. It is measured in inches or in millimeters. In the United States it is expressed in hundredths of an inch; in the United Kingdom in thousandths; and elsewhere in millimeters. For example, a "45 caliber" firearm has a barrel diameter of roughly 0.45 inches (11 mm). Barrel diameters can also be expressed using metric dimensions. For example, a "9 mm pistol" has a barrel diameter of about 9 millimeters. Since metric and US customary units do not convert evenly at this scale, metric conversions of caliber measured in decimal inches are typically approximations of the precise specifications in non-metric units, and vice versa.
A sabot is a supportive device used in firearm/artillery ammunitions to fit/patch around a projectile, such as a bullet/slug or a flechette-like projectile, and keep it aligned in the center of the barrel when fired. It allows a narrower projectile with high sectional density to be fired through a barrel of much larger bore diameter with maximal accelerative transfer of kinetic energy. After leaving the muzzle, the sabot typically separates from the projectile in flight, diverting only a very small portion of the overall kinetic energy.
A gun barrel is a crucial part of gun-type weapons such as small firearms, artillery pieces, and air guns. It is the straight shooting tube, usually made of rigid high-strength metal, through which a contained rapid expansion of high-pressure gas(es) is used to propel a projectile out of the front end (muzzle) at a high velocity. The hollow interior of the barrel is called the bore, and the diameter of the bore is called its caliber, usually measured in inches or millimetres.
A combat shotgun is a shotgun issued by militaries for warfare. The earliest shotguns specifically designed for combat were the trench guns or trench shotguns issued in World War I. While limited in range, the multiple projectiles typically used in a shotgun shell provide increased hit probability unmatched by other small arms.
A shotgun shell, shotshell or simply shell is a type of rimmed, cylindrical (straight-walled) cartridges used specifically in shotguns, and is typically loaded with numerous small, pellet-like spherical sub-projectiles called shot, fired through a smoothbore barrel with a tapered constriction at the muzzle to regulate the extent of scattering. A shell can sometimes also contain only a single large solid projectile known as a slug, fired usually through a rifled slug barrel. The hull usually consists of a paper or plastic tube often covered at the base by a metallic head cover which retains a primer, and the shot charge is typically contained by a wadding/sabot inside the case. The caliber of the shotshell is known as its gauge.
A riot shotgun is a shotgun designed or modified for use as a primarily defensive weapon, by the use of a short barrel and sometimes a larger magazine capacity than shotguns marketed for hunting. The riot shotgun is used by military personnel for guard duty and was at one time used for riot control, and is commonly used as a door breaching and patrol weapon by law enforcement personnel, as well as a home defense weapon by civilians. Guns of this type are often labeled as breaching shotguns, tactical shotguns or special-purpose shotguns to denote the larger scope of their use; however, these are largely marketing terms.
A shotgun slug is a heavy projectile made of lead, copper, or other material and fired from a shotgun. Slugs are designed for hunting large game, and other uses, particularly in areas near human population where their short range and slow speed helps increase safety margin. The first effective modern shotgun slug was introduced by Wilhelm Brenneke in 1898, and his design remains in use today. Most shotgun slugs are designed to be fired through a cylinder bore, improved cylinder choke, rifled choke tubes, or fully rifled bores. Slugs differ from round ball lead projectiles in that they are stabilized in some manner.
The gauge of a firearm is a unit of measurement used to express the inner diameter of the barrel.
The term express was first applied to hunting rifles and ammunition beginning in the mid-19th century, to indicate a rifle or ammunition capable of higher than typical velocities. The early express cartridges used a heavy charge of black powder to propel a lightweight, often hollow point bullet, at high velocities to maximize point blank range. Later the express cartridges were loaded with nitrocellulose-based gunpowder, leading to the Nitro Express cartridges, the first of which was the .450 Nitro Express.
The .45-70 rifle cartridge, also known as the .45-70 Government, was developed at the U.S. Army's Springfield Armory for use in the Springfield Model 1873, which is known to collectors as the "Trapdoor Springfield." The new cartridge was a replacement for the stop-gap .50-70 Government cartridge, which had been adopted in 1866, one year after the end of the American Civil War.
A choke is a tapered constriction of a firearm barrel at its muzzle end. Chokes are most commonly seen on shotguns, but are also used on some rifles, pistols, or even airguns. Notably, some .22 LR match rifles have a constricted bore diameter near the muzzle.
Four bore or 4 bore is an obsolete black powder caliber of the 19th century, used for the hunting of large and potentially dangerous game animals. The specifications place this caliber between the larger two bore and the lesser six bore. This caliber was the quintessential elephant gun caliber of the black powder safari rifles. The caliber was also used for the Coffman cartridges used for starting large aero engines such as the Rolls-Royce Griffon as used in the later Marks of Supermarine Spitfire.
In shooting sports, a shot grouping, or simply group, is the collective pattern of projectile impacts on a target from multiple consecutive shots taken in one shooting session. The tightness of the grouping is a measure of the precision of a weapon, and a measure of the shooter's consistency and skill. On the other hand, the grouping displacement is a measure of accuracy.
The ball and shot gun, often also known by the marketing name paradox gun, is a shotgun capable of firing both shot and solid projectiles. First built by Holland and Holland, the term paradox is a proprietary name applied to these guns by Holland and Holland.