Any thoughts? I have a savage 24 22/20 gauge full choke and would like to know if I could shoot lead riffled slugs through it, without damaging the barrel.
Works fine, try a couple of brands to see which one shoots best in your gun. My 870 and 1300 both like Winchester slugs. Mossberg liked the Federal slugs.
I live in a shotgun Deer state, piles of slugs shot every year out of shotguns around here.
Lead Foster style slugs shouldn't give you any trouble through a standard full choke. As mentioned might shoot great, might not. Try several different brands and you might find one that shoots quite a bit better than the others. I'll add one thing, those soft lead slugs foul the bore pretty bad sometimes with lead deposits so take some cleaning gear to the range so you can give them all a fair shake from beginning of your shooting to the end.
I've shot them out of Full Chokes but they shoot better out of improved or open bore barrels. Had modified chokes that also shot good too. Like the other posters said try them and see. They put big holes in deer.
We shot them out of full choke guns for many years. That was long before screw in chokes. From only my own personal experience, the rifled slugs shot great from 16ga shotguns but I've never had great results from a 12 ga no matter the choke. My wifes Winchester is fair to 60 yards or so with a screw in full choke. I have my Grandfathers Sweet Sixteen with full choke which has allways shot 6 inch groups at 100 yards.
As stated before, those rifled slugs will knock a deer cross-eyed.
I've never had much trouble getting 12 gauge smooth bores to shoot slugs well enough. Sometimes you have to try several brands of slugs but usually one would work out well enough. But the absolute best shooting smooth bore I've ever seen was my dads old Belgian Browning Auto Five Light Twelve. That A5 had a 28" modified barrel and would whistle one ounce Remington Foster slugs unbelievably well at 100 yards. Dad would hold a "tight bead" and whatever he pulled down on with his Light Twelve was in serious trouble.
The worst shooter was a high grade Ithaca/SKB side by side double barrel. Man that thing handled like a magic wand and as a late teenager after reading of African hunters using big bore doubles on large dangerous game I wondered if a double barrel shotgun wouldn't work really well on brush country deer. I had a certain place in mind, a large grown up cedar thicket that deer liked to use as security and bedding cover. It was hard hunting around there, ranges were short, the brush was very thick and deer sightings were fleeting and always in motion. I took that little upland shotgun to the range for a bench test and couldn't believe my eyes when I shot slugs through the SxS. The barrels were regulated to throw their shot charges together at about forty yards and just beyond that is when things got interesting. At 75 yards the left barrel struck about 12" right of center and the right barrel about the same distance left of center. The slugs would be 18" - 24" apart horizontally at that range! Under fifty yards it was a viable option and I did hunt with the gun in my honey hole. Predictably all I did was move deer around in and out back and forth despite my best Injun' skills. The light bulb popped on and I began to watch the major trails moving in and out of the thicket setting up well away so as to not spook deer traveling through the area. My success rate took a dramatic jump and I ditched the African Pro Hunter idea. No deer, Cape Buffalo, Elephant, Rhino or Hippo ever fell to my little double gun.
The rifleing on foster slugs is there, not to spin the projectile, but rather, help the projectile swage through choked barrels. Some may tell you its a no go in a. full choke, but personally id do it without worry.