Slugs and choked barrels

[Franklink]

Some ponderings after cleaning a choked barrel that I shoot A LOT of slugs through...

All the patches in the bottom right of the photo. Took four to get to clean. (.177 patch wadded around a qtip is just the right level of tightness for this .20 barrel). Gunzilla works great to clean the barrel. Inspected the choke area of the barrel and no lead buildup.

This is the gun/barrel/slug I referenced here....

N/A - The elusive airgun that AVERAGES 100 yard sub moa groups.

I've been chasing long range airgun accuracy for 4 or 5 years now. And mostly trying to do it with relatively low power setups. The combined variables of "long range" and "low power" make it quite the challenge. While I do stretch out the distance shooting pests to much further, the metric for...

www.airgunnation.com

I shot 11x5 shot groups at 100 yards yesterday and the average 5 shot group size of those 11 groups was 1.295." This gun typically does slightly better than that so figured I had a dirty barrel as it's been over 900 slugs since I last cleaned it (3 boxes) and a bunch of pellets too. But nope, barrel pretty dang clean, the 1.3" average 5 shot group size likely has more to do with it being the first time I've shot at paper from a benched position in months. Just out of practice.

Anyway, general knowledge is that choked barrels and slugs don't play well together. Usually we see folks stating that the lead will build up at the choke. Might be true for higher fpe/bigger calibers/etc. but it sure doesn't apply here. This choked barrel is VERY good with slugs.

Might be worth shooting some slugs through your choked barrel to see how it does.

(.20 LW 12 land and groove with the .20/18.9grain NSA averaging 905fps).

 

[A.G.R]

I’m not a pcp guy but want in on this for learning .. My experiance with center fires tell me more about slugs.. In springers a choke serves a pourpose to compress the skirts evenly as they leave the muzzle . Slugs have no skirt so I’d imagine a good snug fitting barrel would do as well .. seems a sold plug would not benefit from sizing down after the lands did their job with a slug..

hope I learn something here.

 

[zx10wall]

NSA is good to provide options sized for choked barrels.

 

[Franklink]

NSA is good to provide options sized for choked barrels.

Nick does seem to offer lots more diameters for the popular calibers than anybody else.

I lucked out with these .20's cuz he only offers one size for this particular caliber. I've tried them in three different standard rifling, choked .20 LW barrels and have been pleased with the results out of all three.

 

[Vetmx]

A Ghost in .20 and the slug option is genius. When that gun was introduced I fully planned to move two or three of them in and move some other guns out. But the lack of power available from a Ghost cancelled those plans. But a compact .20 in such a well made gun has my wheels spinning again.

 

[Franklink]

A Ghost in .20 and the slug option is genius. When that gun was introduced I fully planned to move two or three of them in and move some other guns out. But the lack of power available from a Ghost cancelled those plans. But a compact .20 in such a well made gun has my wheels spinning again.

Yes sir, it has become my highest volume shooter. Lots of pros for a compact (ish) low caliber slugger.

Cost: find an NSA slug that your gun likes and you're in cost/benefit ratio heaven. These .20 slugs from NSA are pellet cheap. Literally. There are some .22 pellets I pay a higher per shot cost than the .20 NSA slugs.

Air usage: I filled my tanks over the last two days. I have a 60 and a 45min SCBA tank. And a 80 and a 19cf 3000psi SCUBA tank. Per my usage logs I last used my Yong Heng in early Nov, and last used the Altaros in August. I typically use the Yong Heng for the SCUBAs and the Altaros for the higher pressure SCBAs. With a 125ish reg pressure, I'm getting 65 shots per fill from a 250bar fill and 480cc gun tank. How many sluggers get that many shot per fill?!?! My air lasts a long time with the Ghost set up this way. When I start running even a 50fpe .22 (my most powerful airgun) I start burning up alot more air.

BC: for some unknown reason these .20/18.9 NSAs have a much higher BC than they have any business having. At 870-880 it's around 0.085. Push em up to 890-900 and you start to see 0.09-0.095, and when pushed to 925-930 the BC is 0.1. This is from a non-boat tailed first Gen style slug. And still at the non-boat tailed first Gen slug price! These .20/18.9 BC numbers have also been measured by @Arzrover.

The big downside is that the .20 Ghost is not a factory available option. Machining it yourself or paying someone to do so is required. With that comes no factory magazine option, which is a deal breaker for many. Darko @ Carm can help out there though.

The performance of the .20/18.9 NSA slug isn't me blowing smoke. I've used this .20 in various long range high power field target matches and done well with it. And I made a handful of videos of pesting prairie dog videos with it last summer, regularly making kill shots past 120, 140 yards.

The Ghost in basically BRKs Carbine configuration length, as a .20 slugger, is my número uno for long-bombing tiny pills. Big smiles everytime I shoot it.

 

[steve123]

And they fit in a 3/8ths KZ better than 22 cal.

If I try my 25 cal this month those 3/8ths might be a bit too challenging. Not sure what to do yet, I hate driving for 5 hours to miss a bunch.

 

[Franklink]

And they fit in a 3/8ths KZ better than 22 cal.

If I try my 25 cal this month those 3/8ths might be a bit too challenging. Not sure what to do yet, I hate driving for 5 hours to miss a bunch.

Lol, yes they do. Ben's new UFT classes sure shook up the status quo for bigger caliber and more fpe, and in a good way!

With your .22 Altaros you're currently the undefeated champ of slugs in full Monty though. There's a balancing act there somewhere between easier to squeak through the tiny KZs, and the better BC of what you're shooting. So far the final scores have been weighted to the direction of better BC.

 

[steve123]

Lol, yes they do. Ben's new UFT classes sure shook up the status quo for bigger caliber and more fpe, and in a good way!

With your .22 Altaros you're currently the undefeated champ of slugs in full Monty though. There's a balancing act there somewhere between easier to squeak through the tiny KZs, and the better BC of what you're shooting. So far the final scores have been weighted to the direction of better BC.

Ha, with one match in the books.

Yeah kind of a catch22 thing and it seems the FM match evens it out a little more compared to LR. It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the season turns out with guns, projectiles, and calibers. I think 20 cal will hold it's own, maybe pick up a few more hits closer in but might miss some of the longer ones compared to higher BC.

Hey as long as we're having fun!

 

[Franklink]

Ha, with one match in the books.

Yeah kind of a catch22 thing and it seems the FM match evens it out a little more compared to LR. It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the season turns out with guns, projectiles, and calibers. I think 20 cal will hold it's own, maybe pick up a few more hits closer in but might miss some of the longer ones compared to higher BC.

Hey as long as we're having fun!

I was thinking two..... The first one, where you and I were squadded together, and then the second that I couldn't make it to but you and Bobby were in the full Monty slug class. 2/2 Steve, you're the man to beat right now.

Heck yes, those matches are a blast!