I am a lefty shooter buying my first shotgun for primarily turkey hunting and and secondarily for HD, although based on shell count fired many more rounds will be fired at the range. I've no interest at all in upland birds, and any clays would be just for fun/practice with the turkey gun. I've settled on a Mossberg 500 12g since 3" is fine for my needs. I'm looking at a Turkey model 52270 or Grand Slam Turkey model 52262 (55166 and 52263 are just different camo). Both are listed as 'ported' - the Turkey is "xx-full" and the Grand Slam Turkey is "x-factor ported turkey tube". My reading suggests the general opinion about porting is it just makes it harder to clean and gives a louder and brighter muzzle blast.
Several questions:
Several questions:
- Is porting more just marketing, making it harder to clean and louder/brighter to shoot?
- Are the chokes in either of these shotguns removeable and replaceable with non-ported Mossberg chokes? I read that in general many shorter barrels do not have removeable chokes. I cannot figure out if either or both shotguns have removeable chokes.
- Does the barrel length (Turkey is 24", Grand Slam Turkey is 20") include the length of a removeable ported choke tube? If yes would removing the supplied choke and replacing it with a non-ported tube (which is presumably shorter) cause the barrel length to be less than 18.5"
- Anything else I should be asking but havent?