Choke on 16-18" barrel?

Hey, current dilemma;

I have a 500 mossberg with 18.5" standoff cylinder bore barrel. My pattern with 00 Remington is around 12"s at 20 yards, and 6-8" with 00 fc, however the pattern is very amoeba shaped with a string going off in some random direction.

I've been looking to upgrade to a an 18-20 inch barrel that takes chokes, the goal being to tighten the pattern up. I have not had luck in finding a replacement barrel.

Thoughts on threading the standoff/breacher barrel for choke tubes? I've also considered making it an SBS by having the stupid standoff portion cut off.

Thank you much.
 

Kain

Member
If the breacher thing is fixed then I don't think you'd be able to thread it for chokes without chopping and SBSing it. And with where the mount for the tube is I am not sure how hard it may be for the company to thread it as well. Also, for where I'd likely go to get a barrel threaded for chokes you're looking at around $250 to start with, granted you get 3 choke tubes with that.

My personal advice would be to unload the shotgun and buy something else with chokes from the factory. But that is me.
 
How about the effectiveness of chokes on the shorter barreled guns? Chokes are effective right? Seemed weird that so many combat guns have cylinder bores and I was wondering what I was missing.
 

Kain

Member
How about the effectiveness of chokes on the shorter barreled guns? Chokes are effective right? Seemed weird that so many combat guns have cylinder bores and I was wondering what I was missing.

The gauges I used for my department had modified chokes and patterned tight with low recoil buck. However, having spend more time behind a guage than I care to admit to, there is more to a pattern than just choke constriction. You have the forcing cones, as well, and that can affect both pattern and felt recoil. Too short and they can have a gun that otherwise would be not too bad become rather unpleasant. There is also the point hat if you over choke a gun with some loads your pattern may begin to open up. And that can be due to a choke being too tight, a shot size being too large, a shot load pushing a load too fast, or a variation of the three. I have also heard from some, and have not tried to confirm this myself, that you do have some loads that are designed for a certain type of set up in mind, and when you give them a choke with a constriction beyond that design you will patterns open up a fair bit. I've heard that in passing with flite control loadings, but have not sat down to test that myself.

Comes down to what are you wanting the gun to do?
 
I want the gun to be effective I guess is the right answer. When my wife goes camping with her friends she always wants the shotgun. I think mainly because it's less shocking if they see it in her SUV or tent.

I'm not happy with the pattern outside our apartment though. I want her to be able to put that nice group of pellets into someone before they get to the 20 yard line.
 

Kain

Member
You may need to try a few different load than to see what patterns to your desired level beyond 20 yards, though understand, a shotgun pattern will continue to expand, and you have more than a few groups who would be shocked to see a sub 20 inch pattern at 20 since their training and experience tells them it should be 20 inches.

That said, if your concern is intercepting a threat beyond 20 or 25 yards my reaction, at least initially, if restricted to a shotty, is slugs. At which point we are back to ditching the 500 since there are other options out there which may be better since I may then want either rifle sights or a RDS option for handling that issue. Also that would be my choice camping in areas with bear encounters as a possible.
 
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