Went goose hunting and had a blast, but had to borrow a friends gun. Will my winchester 1200 (1975 yr)shoot steel. I have the win-choke set up F/M/IC. I mainly hunt pheasant and quail with my 20 ga. o/u. Just wondred if I could use this winchester for the geese??? Can any one help?

My guess would be no and for sure not out of the Full choke. You should contact Winchester to find out.

As you probably know the older guns have barrels made of a materal that is not has hard as the steel shot so it can cause damage.

On the bright side this could give you an excuse to by another shotgun.

I don't know if this is true-but I have heard that you should not shoot steel shot out of any FULL or IMPROVED choke as it can damage the choke tube. My new shot-gun clearly states this in the owners manual. Yours may be different-or not.

I like the idea of the new shotgun the best I did contact winchester, they thanked me for the e-mail and said they would let me know. It never happened. At Gander mountain they said it would be ok if i used i/c choke.???
The damage you talked about, very sever quickly or over time?

I think Kawabuggy might have his info a little messed up.

Here's the deal. The most common chokes in order from the most open to the tightest are as followed. C, IC, Mod, ImpMod, Full. So a IC is more open than a modified choke. Although this bit of into doesnt really answer your question.

There are some steel specific chokes that are labled "Full Steel" but normally they are not as tight as a regular full choke. The true measure would be to pattern a gun at 40 yards and if you get a 70% pattern at that distance that is considered full. Because lead doesnt pattern as tight as steel you need a real "Full" choke to get that kind of pattern but for steel a mod choke would most likely give you a full pattern. Every gun and choke set up is different though as well asthe specific load you shoot.

I contacted Remington about my 870 express, and asked them the same question about steel shot. I told them that the only chokes that I have is the full and the modified chokes that came with the gun. I wanted to know if I had to buy a new gun/choke or whatever. They said that I could shoot steel shot out of my 870 with either choke.

Thanks for the info guys. I called and they said after many, many, many shells thru it it could show some cosmetic markings. I'm goina do it.

marcstar; i liked your suggestion the best----bought the new gun last weekend charles daly 12 ga auto loader, so far it works great

If anyone has a Browning A-5 made in Belgium DO NOT SHOOT STEEL IN IT. If you have a Japan made A-5 shoot till you drop, ain't gonna hurt it.

The Belgium barrel will be ruined. The Belgium barrel steel is very soft compared to Japan barrel. The barrel will "ring" a noticeable swelling at the point where the choke starts in the barrel.

I have an 1989 Winchester and did notice some difference in my full so I'm shooting MOD now with no visible problems. I know mine is a little further ahead, but I would still not shoot full choke.

Steel loads are loaded with special wads that serve to somewhat protect barrels but scoring and other damage can still occur with older softer steel barrels over time. Also as you shoot bigger size shot the chances of damage increases. In this case it's all trivial because he got a new shotgun.