I have limited experience in this arena. Back in the mid 80s deer hunting in Mississippi was an almost exclusively shotgun affair. Sure there were a few that hunted with a rifle along bean fields and power line right of ways, but most hunted with a shotgun. As a matter of fact many clubs and even WMAs were shotgun only.
Well Hastings introduced a rifled barrel for popular shotgun models like the 870 and 1100. The benefit of this was greatly improved accuracy of slugs from a shotgun and was "legal" in those shotgun only areas. I bought on and it turned my 870 into a 100 yard gun.
My only other custom barrel was a Walther barrel from Clark Custom Guns for a 77/22. The difference was night and day. The Ruger barrel was a 1" shooter at 50yds even with premium ammo. The Clark rifle will put five rounds touching at the same distance from a bench.
Edit to add:
After posting this I was thinking about accuracy and some of the things I've done chasing accuracy. One thing I had good luck with is lapping a barrel. I had a Savage 22 that shot okay groups but never great ones. I used a lead singer as a slug and pushed it through the barrel. The first thing I noticed was a few tight spots. Next thing to do was apply some lapping compound to the slug and push it through again. I kept this up for about thirty passes before going to a different slug and a finger grit compound. Boring work so I spaced it out over a week interval working one set of passes each day. By the time I got to 1200 grit the barrel had no tight spots. After cleaning the rifle I was pretty much amazed at the improvement, so much so I lapped two more good shooters trying to squeeze a bit more out of them.
Now you can buy kits that use felt pellets to do the same thing. I haven't tried them yet but have plans to run some through the barrel of a Browning SA-22 short that gives pretty dismal results at the range.
Last year I went at the issue from a different angle. I bought a Neal Waltz .22 LR sizing and forming die kit. The kit comes with a profile inserts to make round nose into flat point, hollow point or dimpled like some of the Eley match ammo profiles. The die can squeeze the projectile down which increases it's diameter. Tighter fit should equal tighter groups. I had limited improvement in tightening groups but the hollow point die made great improvements in terminal performance.
None of this answered your question directly and as usual I got way of topic. Any one else want to jump in?
