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dawg_gone

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I am trying to set up my new SBE II for turkey season. My question, after reading all the comments about chokes, loads, etc. on this site, has to do with shotgun modifications. I was looking at the Rhino website and saw were they ported and lengthened the forcing cone and was interested if anyone had this done and if satisfied w/results. I called and they claimed 23% denser patterns. The porting would be interesting if reduced recoil significantly on the 3 1/2 in mag loads. Denser patterns would be an added bonus. Just curious.

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Here's something I posted on my forums on gun patterning from the Nitro catalog when I got my ammo. I can't really back up what all they say but I liked it and thought it was good information. Especially coming from a company that makes their living loading shotgun shells & test patterns. Hope it helps and that maybe someone that knows more about it can chime in on their thoughts ;)

 

TESTING LOADS:

 

It is very important to clean your barrel before starting and testing. Today there are many modern plastic wads that leave a build up of plastic in all barrels. The bore must be cleaned with a solvent that will dissolve plastic. This is a must for maximum potential of your shotgun shell. While testing, run a dry patch down the barrel between shots to keep clean any powder residue, oil or solvent that way be left in the bore. This combination can interfere with your pattern and could jump the wad. After shooting 10 to 15 shot, clean barrel with solvent for plastic residue as when you started. Let the solvent soak for at least I hour to dissolve all the plastic.

 

Loads should be tested in the same weather conditions. Make sure the humidity and temperature are the same when testing loads on different days. Low humidity is always best for testing loads with the temperature of 50 to 60 degrees and no wind. Weather plays an important part in patterning. When hunting in the rain, the moisture in the air will open your pattern. Therefore, your maximum range in the rain would be 10 yards less than normal. Loads should be shot onto a large piece of paper, at least newspaper size. You will be able to get a view of where you gun is shooting. If you do not do this, you are wasting your time and money. Your gun may be shooting to the right or to the left. You need to know if you have to adjust your sights or compensate on a bead sight. Sometimes sight do not adjust from left to right and in these instances, we recommend using adjustable rifle sights or a scope. WE DO NOT recommend lengthening forcing cones. Our testing finds that lengthening the forcing cone hinders the pattern instead of helping it. We highly recommend polishing the barrel and forcing cone – NOT LENGTHENING!!!!

 

It is not so much what you want to shoot, but rather what your shotgun WILL shoot. Your gun could take small or large shot, Hevi-shot, copper or nickel shot. The harmonics of each individual varies, just like a rifle. We recommend longer barrels for optimum performance. An ideal barrel length would be 26” for faster velocities and better patterns.

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if you check out the nitrocompany site they recomend you do not lengthen the cone, rhino makes a good choke ,i know i own some, but before you get unreversable work done to your benelli , you might want to just have the barrel and forcing cone polished, but im not sure if you need that because i think sbe's are chrome lined allready, make sure the bore of that gun is cleaned with a solvent and then make sure it is totaly dry , this will increse your core pattern. Check out oldgobbler.com we love turkey guns and quite a few of us" including me" shoot benelli's

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i've had forcing cones lengthened on many guns over the years and it DOES improve patterning.....having said this I don't have any Benelli's with longer cones but I have several Beretta's and my Browning Gold has a longer cone as well.

 

there is a point of dimenishing returns when it comes to longer forcing cones and many modern guns have longer forcing cones than older shotguns. from my experience a 1-3/4" to 2" forcing cone is all that you need but there are people out there suggesting 3", 4" & 5" cones are all the rage....but the reality is 2" does the trick.

 

polishing is kind of misleading because many gunsmiths who "polish" actually lengthen the forcing cone with a reamer first then "polish" it......getting the forcing cone area polished will improve the pattern because a good polishing actually lengthens the forcing cone!!! ask a reputable gunsmith, don't take my word for it and certainly don't take Nitro's word either....they want you to buy more of their ammo not spend your money on gun modifications that might lead you to the conclusion that high quality factory ammo works very well in you longer forcing cone shotgun!

 

finally, lengthening the forcing cone can help reduce recoil (slightly), i equate this to the difference between a "punch" vs a "shove"......a smoother transition or removing that "bump" or lengthening the forcing cone (what ever you want to call it) will soften the "punch" but only slightly....take my Beretta Onyx Pro 3.5 until I had the barrels ported and the cones lengthened you could not bear to shoot heavy 3-1/2" loads....$400 dollars worth of barrel work by Jack Concannon it feels more like 3" loads and it does pattern better, too!

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Good information, Tooky!

Polishing the cone has definitie benefits and it's not the same as lengthening, although the cone should absolutely be polished after it is visited by the grim reamer.

 

Older guns and cheaper guns can benefit greatly from polishing.

 

There would be no need to polish the cone in a new Benelli crio barrel however.

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Good information, Tooky!

Polishing the cone has definitie benefits and it's not the same as lengthening, although the cone should absolutely be polished after it is visited by the grim reamer.

 

well put....see this link it comes from a "shotgun gunsmith" with decades of experience. pay patricular attention to what he says about lengthening a forcing cone and polishing it....

 

http://www.gunnersden.com/index.htm.shotgun-forcing-cones.html

 

i'm not sure my SBE2 barrel wouldn't benefit from a little cone work but i've put all my eggs in the Beretta & Browning Gold 10 basket (modification and pattern wise).....maybe they needed it more than a Benelli?!?! ;)

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Thanks for all the informative replies in relation to the forcing cone issue, and it seems that there are arguments to both sides which is cool. I'll do some more research on that topic before I make my decision. Not that I'm a fan of mossburg but they really play up the advertising of backbored barrels, I'm showing my ignorance here but what exactly is that and is that akin to lengthening the forcing cone? Also there were no opinions on the barrel porting part of the original question. Would it help and is it worth it?

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Not that I'm a fan of mossburg but they really play up the advertising of backbored barrels, I'm showing my ignorance here but what exactly is that and is that akin to lengthening the forcing cone? Also there were no opinions on the barrel porting part of the original question. Would it help and is it worth it?

 

dawg, "back boring" or "over-bored" barrels simply means the 12 ga barrel bore is larger than .729" diameter. the theory is, this larger bore diameter reduces recoil, reduces shot string length, increases velocity, improves patterns and makes you better in the bedroom.....okay it doesn't really do all of that! what backboring really does is;

 

"back-boring or opening up the bore of a shotgun takes less choke constriction to still get the same pattern as one with a standard bore. This is a big bonus to all that love to shoot trap and other sporting clay games because this puts more pellets into the center mass of the shot string and over all shortens the shot string reducing the time frame from first pellet strike to the last."

 

see this link for more info on backboring;

 

http://www.gunnersden.com/index.htm.shotgun-back-boring.html

 

can you tell i'm a big fan of "GunnersDen"? lots of good unbiased info there.....

 

DON'T backbore your benelli's or beretta's they have chrome-lined barrels and the benefits of chrome out shines backboring (imho)!!! i've shot beretta o/u's & 390's that were professionally backbored and the shorter shot string is deadlier on moving targets (clays, upland birds).....but it does little to improve a turkey gun!

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