doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Steel Shot through a 16 gauge

Generally speaking, older fluid steel gun barrels are fine with modern steel loads, as long as the loads and the chokes are sensible. There are some exceptions.

Because it takes less constriction to tighten patterns the smaller the bore gets I would not go tighter than a light modified in a 16, James. Certainly no more than .015", which is considered LM in a 12 ga.

Thank you Stan.

when shooting steel, choke constriction is certainly a consideration...

plus, one should also consider hardness of steel shot vs hardness of barrel steel...scoring and erosion of bores can occur when steel shot is harder than barrel steel...

Steel shot never gets close to the actual bore. Literally surrounded by an ultra thick, tough plastic/resin wad. There’s no scoring. There’s no scratching. Theres no erosion. The only thing that would cause any of that is foreign elements that were already in the bore (ie dirt, mud, etc). There’s only burnt plastic/resin and powder fouling left in the bore after firing a modern factory loaded steel shot shell.
Again Ed, the shot never comes into contact with the bore.
All factory steel loads are loaded with specially designed wads that eliminates any shot contact. I’ve never seen a factory steel load loaded with a brush wad or a felt wad.

The main issues have already been discussed. High Pressure. Choke constriction. Gun design.

fusil, having seen guns with bores scored from shooting steel, i beg to disagree...

granted, its been awhile. perhaps steel shot wad columns have been improved...