I was told not to use rifled slugs in my smooth bore tac mag, because the slugs can actually begin to rifle your barrel as they pass through it, which can result in a ricochet inside the barrel when firing pellets or buckshot out of it.
I will only use 00 or 000 buckshot out of the smoothbore as a result of that information.
“I was told not to use rifled slugs in my smooth bore tac mag, because the slugs can actually begin to rifle your barrel as they pass through it...”
That is not possible. Shotgun slugs are made of soft lead. Shotgun barrels are made of hard steel. Whoever told you that is mistaken.
Thats just not accurate info. Lead -does not- cut grooves into steel. Also, the slug is not spinning inside the smoothbore. And your buckshot is not richocheting around inside the barrel, it is riding in the shot cup and is surrounded by that micro styrofoam buffering material.
The only potential way to damage your smoothbore barrel with a slug is if you have a choke on it. But on cylinder or improved cylinder, you will never hurt it with slugs.
http://www.stu-offroad.com/firearms/patterntest/buck1-3.htm
Heres a great photo series that shows the innards on the 00 buckshot shell. You can see that white buffering material, and the shot cup that the buckshot rides in. That whole inner plastic cup flies down the barrel as an intact unit.
Thats why there can be no ricochets inside the barrel as that guy warned you.
As it clears the barrel, the plastic opens up like fins on a snake-eye bomb, and the shot is freed.
Oh, and that white granular stuff isn’t truly styrofoam, but it reminds me of it.
My guess about him thinking it can “rifle” the barrel was that he saw streaks of grime and lead fouling in a dirty barrel and decided it was rifled or etched by the slugs.
It was just dirty and a good cleaning will have it as good as new. Those plastic cups will leave a similar appearing fouling after a while.