Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Good optics for a slug gun???

Between me and the kids we have 9 slug guns in the house, with some having 2 barrels, 1 being a smoothbore slug barrel and the other rifled, for a total of 12 barrels/scopes for said guns.

7 of the guns are 12 gauge, 2 are 20 gauge. Guns include an Ithaca 37, Remington 11-87, 2 1100's, 2 870's, and 3 Winchester 1300 pumps.

One is scoped with an old school El Paso Weaver V4.5 variable 1.5X4.5 power, one is scoped with a Denver Redfield Widefield variable 1.5X5 and the other 10 barrels are all scoped with a Bushnell Banner 1.5X4.5 variable with a duplex recticle.

That particular Banner model is well suited to a slug gun. Generous eye relief, about 4 inches I believe, crystal clear optics, and at 1.5 you can easily get on a deer 10 yards away and moving swiftly. It never ceases to amaze me that they can put together such a good scope for the price, definitely I feel the most bang you could get for your buck in a slug gun scope.

Additionally, we have shot them often, from the bench, in a Leadsled, and in the field at deer and have had zero failures of any kind with the scope. It would be(and obviously is) my scope of choice in putting together a slug gun, either smooth bored or rifled.

Here's my daugher in her treestand last year with her 'pre 77' 1100 20 gauge smoothebore slug gun and a Bushnell Banner mounted on it. She did shoot a small buck that day, but don't have a pic of it with the gun. Distance was about 45 yards.


Son with a small buck taken with the Ithaca 37 12 gauge (1963 vintage) and smoothbore barrel and Bushnell Banner at 35 yards. He has also taken a doe with that barrel/scope combo at 128 lasered yards.


Here is a 12 gauge 870 smoothbore sluggun with a receiver I drilled and tapped and installed a Weaver pivot base and a Bushnell Banner 1.5X4.5 sitting on it.