Slug Guns

[Xi Bowhunter]

What is your take on hunting with 12ga slugs? I sight my .30-06 in at 150 yards every year, but I have only taken one deer over that range. Most of the deer I have taken with a gun have been 50 yards or less from me. I hunt a lot of heavy brush, and I was thinking about going with a bigger bore gun. I may start using my muzzle-loader, but I am also considering getting a slug barrel for my 12ga and a small scope. Anybody have any experience using slugs?

[moosehead rollins]

So far I hate them. Im using a ML for opening in Indiana.

[Multidigits]

Big, slow heavy slugs knocking through brush better than a faster bullet is a myth......doesn't work that away in real life. 12 ga. slugs are capable of killing deer, but they are not better than a rifle in anyway.

[HillBillyFiveO]

My wife has killed many, many deer with her 870 20 guage. She shoots Remington sabots out fo it and has had great luck harvesting what she shoots at. Generally doesn't have to track them far either. To each his own, I suppose.

Floyd T.

[RVtech24]

An 870 with a rifled slug barrel is a deer slayer in the thick brush.

Leave off the scope.

[KYBOY]

I killed several deer with a browning rifled BPS at up to 127 yards easily. Win 3" Sabots slugs. It grouped at and under 2" @100 yds usually. The button buck i killed at 127 yds was a complete pass thru.

[Chuck Milam]

I come from Wisconsin, where slug guns are mandated in the more populous areas of the state. I have taken all but one of the deer in my lifetime with 12ga slugs. I personally use a rifled barrel (I have one with a scope and one with open sights), firing the 1oz. solid copper Barnes Expander sabots by Federal.

[Hoosier5]

I own a Browning Gold Deer Gun, with rifled barrel, in 20 gauge and have a Leupold 2-7 popwer "Shotgun" scope mounted on it. I've found that the accuracy, in a 20 gauge, is much better, when compaired with that of a 12 gauge. While it doesn't compare with a true rifle; it's accuracy is very good up to 100 yards. I've received some 2" to 3" 5-shopt groups @ 100 yards.

[Xi Bowhunter]

Thanks for the insight guys, I'm still looking over my options, but I will give a slug a try one of these days.

[KYBOY]

The hardest lick I ever personally saw a deer take was from a 3" sabot slug at about 40 yards. There was a smack that sounded like a basketball hit with a baseball bat. There was an exit wound that I could literally stick my fist in. It was impressive to see.

[hwright]

If all I was going to shoot was 50 to 75 yeards the only thing I would shoot would be a 12 gauge auto loader. When decked out with a rifled barrel and sabots there is noting more deadly at that close of a range. I come from Indiana where slugs is all you can use and sometimes I wish that's what Kentucky would go to. Imagine how many deer would go unkilled or unwounded because people are shooting to far. Even if 10 percent of the deer killed in Kentucky are over 100 yeards thats 10 percent of the bucks that would make it another year.

Is unwounded a word??? :confused::confused:

HEATH

[KodiakJoe153]

When I first started hunting I used a Mosseburg 12g pump, Rifled barrel, a 1.5x burris scopeand 3" Brenneke Rotweil's in it and I've only shot one deer with it about 35 yards. It spun the doe around 1 and a 1/2 times and laying a serious smack down on it. I had a friends dad sight it in at 100 yards he could hold 1-2" group with it. If I hunted in thick woods I'd use it over my 30-06, muzzel loader, or my 338 win mag. If you hunt dense woods you might not need a scope at all. The right slug makes the gunn you might have to try several different ones to figure out the right combination. Good Luck.

[Buk Bust'r]

Took my first buck with a slug out of an old Mossberg 185D bolt-action 12 ga. many a moons ago. Never bothered me to hunt with a slug and for a time I hunted with a Remington 1100 equipped with a rifled Hastings barrel. It would shoot within 2" at 100 yards and never had a deer walk after bein' hit with it. Most of the time they hit the ground dead as a hammer.

[raven_over_easy]

So far I hate them. Im using a ML for opening in Indiana.

Very sound advise!

[smoke-pole]

i shoot a mossberg 500a with a rifled barrel and barnes sabot slugs. i have a simmons pro diamond 1.5x5.32 scope on it. I have shot many inch and a half 3 shot groups at 75 yards with it. personally i would not hunt with any thing else.

[Bows over Guns]

if i hunt in the woods i use my benelli slug gun rifled barrel. i love it. i have never had one run out of sight if they run at all.

[Fat Tony]

My rifles have not come out of the gun safe for KY hunting season in years. I hunt shooting lanes out to maybe 100 yards. Only use my ML or rifled slug guns.

My Mossberg 500 in 20 ga is pushing 385 grains in the Lightfield EXP. Groups within a circle the size of a baseballl at 100 yards (not on a bench) and they don't run off when hit cause they absorb all the energy on the other side of the hide. I have the same set up in 12 and it is just as accurate. I just don't need the extra kick for the same results. 20 is more than enough at the distances I shoot.

[Fat Tony]

The hardest lick I ever personally saw a deer take was from a 3" sabot slug at about 40 yards. There was a smack that sounded like a basketball hit with a baseball bat. There was an exit wound that I could literally stick my fist in. It was impressive to see.

One of the does I took a couple of years ago at about 40 yards dead on with my 12 ga set up literally did a backflip from the force. No exit wound. Just a ton of force and 100% is absorbed by the body. Just picked her up and threw her head over tail.

I don't like having to go find em after the shot. Never have had to with one of these Lightfield sabots. They anchor them.

[Fat Tony]

Big, slow heavy slugs knocking through brush better than a faster bullet is a myth......doesn't work that away in real life. 12 ga. slugs are capable of killing deer, but they are not better than a rifle in anyway.

In general, I totally agree. However, never seen one run more than two hops with a 7/8 or 1 ounce slug in the boiler room. Seen plenty of .243, .270 and 30-06 rounds in the boiker room and they somehow figure out how to run dead on their feet to the thicket or downfeild into a gully. I've seen it happen more than just a few times over the years. Don't know why.