The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

Was doing my quarterly weapons wipe down, and started wondering about dad's shotgun.

Nothing special just a 1975 Remington 1100 12 gauge with a ribbed vent barrel. Some reading has left me confused to put it mildly.

Half of the sites state the ribbed vent is designed to help disapate heat, the other half says BS it's used for sighting. Furthermore half the sites say shotguns with vented ribbed barrels are range guns, and are not used for hunting due to branches and such being able to get caught up in the vented area.

My dad hunted ducks, grouse, sage hen, pheasant, chucker etc with it in Idaho with no issues.

So what is the purpose of the ribbed vent?
Are ribbed vent shotguns range guns?
Are ribbed vent shotguns impractical for field use?

I'll try and get some pictures of the old gal here soon and post them in a new post.

The Rib helps with preventing heat distortion of your sighting plane. I hunt and shoot trap with one, I have no issues with stuff getting caught in the spaces

All we hunt with are the older model 1100's and I've hunted with one for 51 years now since I got my first one. Best shotgun for the money in my opinion. Most of ours have vent rib barrels and two don't. I prefer the VR barrel as it helps my aiming in my older years now. As a kid I didn't pay much attention to VR or plain barrels.

It's a much better sight plane. A shotgun barrel isn't a good flat plane. I can shoot slugs with a vent rib good as I can with rifle sights.

Vent ribs were first an add-on item made by Simmons for Trap and Skeet guns, for keeping heat mirage from messing with sighting, and to keep weight down as opposed ti solid ribs, which had become common on some repeaters due to their being used on some SxS and maybe O/U's. They became standard on field guns sometime from the late 50's to the mid 70's. Both my Dad's 1100's had VR barrels, dates 1962 and 1970. I got the use of the '62 gun for Trap and duck, and spent a lot of time keeping it able to get all 3 shots off at ducks-the start of my gunsmithing career/hobby.