dog229 said:
Dog229 Here,
I was shooting with friends with my 590a1 and was trying slug and 00 ammo and was surprised to discover that my 590 pattern better at 15 and 25 yards than my friends 590a1 using the same ammo in both guns which we had a total of four 590a1 we where using.
Not surprising at all. It is not uncommon for the same ammo to perform differently in guns that are in appearance identical.
I took a look at all the guns and found that three of the guns were bought in the last six months of 2011 new from two different gun stores locally. My 590a1 was bought used from a buy back from a sherriff's department and was made by the serial number being check by Mossberg was made in 1998 which then was only available for police or military. My friends guns where the ones available for the public. COULD it be that maybe the barrel specs. might have been different between then and now making the end chock a little tighter or something.
Not really, if you're asking if OFM has different specs on guns that go to PD/.gov sales than the public sales. Same guns, same assembly.
I friends really were surprised after they shot theirs and then shot mine. One of them wanted to trade plus $100. I did the right thing i kep't mine!
Yes, you did the right thing.
The ammo was from the same box that we used on all of the guns either slug or 00.
A question that may not be able to answer other than just luck.
Dog229 Gone
It really is a common occurance.
oli700 said:
I have seen the same model SG pattern different but not terribly drastic. I would say the choke is tighter or the department sent it to a company like Vang Comp where they did barrel work improving the pattern. Is the recoil the same as the others you have fired ?
It is possible that the shotgun was sent out for work, but it really isn't outside what I've seen with some shotguns in fleet service. Some will do great, some will do OK, and some will stink on ice with door sized patterns that are way off from POA. It happens in mass production.
dog229 said:
Dogg229 here,
All four 590a1 are 18.5 barrel with speedfast stocks. Looking at the there is no noticable difference at looking at them and the recoil felt the same with all the guns. Not knowing if any barrel work has been done i can not tell. My has no porting.
Easy way to tell if work has been done:
Clean the barrels and look down them from the chamber. About 3.5" in or so look for a ring that appears to be darker than the rest of the bore. It will almost appear to have fouling in a circle around the bore. If your gun either has a brighter area that is a little longer, or no ring is noticeable it probably has had the cone lengthened and polished. Factory cones are typically fairly short and at a more severe angle, leaving that dark ring in the bore. It's not really dirty, it just is at a different angle to the eye than the rest of the bore and the chamber preceding it. If you've had it lengthened and polished it will be longer and brighter typically, depending on how long the cone was made. Because it is now at a shallower angle (and thus longer) and has actually been polished it will look different from a factory cone.
Does Vang Comp mark the barrel after they do the mods.?
I know they have in the past.
I just think i have a good shooting 590a1 by the luck of the draw but have notice in the gun stores my old 590 looks to have a better fit and finish to what the new have to offer at $500.
Dog229 Gone
Quite possible.
dog229 said:
I am not trying to turn a shotgun into a rifle but to only find what works the best to get all out of the gun. My local gunsmith told me that in the late 80's the local city police came to them to try and improve their shotguns pattern with in the 15 yard range. He told me that not having the tactical ammo of todays standard and design
Very true. In the 80s and up to the early 90s shotgun technology was still where it had been for quite a while, and nobody really worried about it anyway.
As technology developed the benefits of hardened and plated shot got more attention, as did different buffering materials and finally the FC wad. Oddly enough, some saw these as negatives but that's another discussion. Propellants also got some work, and with the advent of larger numbers of smaller LEOs and females the reduced recoil loads were in demand, which Federal produced. Then the smaller patterns they produced caught on, and the technology was pushed more and you got reduced recoil, tighter patterns, and lower flash. All good things for LE.
Vang was on the mechanical side of things, producing barrels that did this same thing for any ammo so that a department was limited to one type of round.
they messed with barrel mods and took a long time in coming up with a proven method but they did and 60 shotguns later to be delivered they came up with most pellets inside of a 24 inch circle at 10 yards and with a 14 inch barrel.
If that's what they were happy with at 10 yards, that's pretty bad.
He told me to just find what shoots the best for pattern and reduced recoil in either slug or 00 and leave the barrel mods to the magazine articles and reviews!
Generally good advise, although barrel mods can take tight patterns and shift them downrange significantly so that your B zone goes out to about twice what it normally would.
For the average homeowner, barrel work may be polishing cannon balls with no appreciable increase in performance at their expected range and situation and that money could be better spent on training and ammunition.
oli700 said:
They probably did forcing cone work, some people do it for themselves.
Possible, and why cone work has gotten some bad reviews. Different people do different things, and if you tweak your cone to a particular load if that changes it could make the pattern worse.
Your gunsmith gave you sound advice.....if you have a lifetime supply of that ammo. The genius of work like Vang Comp provides is that no matter what kind of ammo you end up with you know that it is going to be shooting it the best it can be shot…..if that makes since. Who knows one day you might be depending on someone’s reloads and home cast 00 buck to defend your village.
The reason to go with a reputable company is that they come with a ton of experience…repetition, muscle memory…..tricks of the trade.
True.
Rossignol said:
I agree tha it is entirely possible some internal work was done on the barrel, it isn't altogether uncommon for departments to have the work done. Nothin wrong with that, I expect to have my Vang Comp custom barrel back in another day or two. I have documented the barels performance with a number of different loads in box stock form so I really excited to redo my testing with the customization, especially since its the very same barrel!
I think you will like what you get.
It has been years since I had a Vang barrel; this was back when I was still a Remington user. But they did great work and patterns were very good and it was possible to knock down poppers at much longer ranges and not have leakers off of an IDPA target. Now that I run Mossbergs I like the Aimpro work, but I also shoot Fed tac loads pretty much exclusively.
