Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Sabot slugs for rifled barrel

Any recommendations for good sabot slugs for 12 gauge? I just picked up a rifled barrel for a 930, and next step is to get a red dot mounted on the receiver.

I hunted a lot if shotgun only areas in VA when I was active duty and used an HR Ultra light slug gun. It was a single shot with a rifled barrel. I tested every brand of siug I could find and the most accurate one was the Winchester Sabot Round with a 50 caliber bullet. It was deadly and accurate to 150 yards which was as far as I could shòot in that area due to thick cover.

If they still make those I would try those.

Federal premium Barnes expander all copper slugs and Lightfield slugs shoot great in my shotguns.

Ron

Light fields and Winchester partition golds

When I was sluggun hunting deer in Ohio I used Lightfields and Winchester partition golds. They both shot great and both killed deer as dead as Elvis. I ended up using the lightfields as I came into a case of them at a great deal. But the partition golds worked just as good in my 1187 with a rifled barrel in my opinion.
Its been quite a few years since I used a slug gun with Ohio allowing straightwall rifles I went that route so I dont know if something new is out that is better.

Lightfield no longer makes hunting ammo.

Lightfield as stated no more....You will need to find what your gun prefers....you will be lucky to find any sabots so you better get what you find when you find it ...lastly ditch the Red dot and put a real scope on your gun

I have killed deer with Horn a day SST in 12 ga (very destructive even at 75 yards), same in 20 ga, didnt expand at 18 yards, and Remington Accutip in both(excellent). I have sold my slug guns and gone to single shot straight wall cartridge rifles. Last fall, 44 mag (drt at 68 yards) and next year 45-70.
Many killed with Foster slugs by Winchester, Fed, and Rem over the years.

+1 on ditching the red dot.
2-7 or 1.5-5 even a 3-9 would be good

Best performing sabotted slug on Deere was the Remington Core Lokt ultras. No longer made. Hammered 70 plus whitetail at ranges from 20- 268 yards. All pass through except I finally caught one 12 ga slug in a 5 year old doe quartered to me at 192 yards. Entered front shoulder exited center back of the sternum and then into the offside lower ham rest in the hide in the back of the leg after shattering the femur. Farthest 20ga shot was 229 yards center lungs ran 10 yards. Clean pass through. All my scopes have hold over dots and spent a lot of time at the range. It sad they are no longer available but I have a stock pile of 20 and 12 ga core lokts when I found out they were discontinued. If I didn’t have them I’d probably use Barnes expanders.

I went to start writing a response, and realized my last time out with a saboted slug was before the turn of the century.

What I will tell you is back in my day, finding a sabot and barrel that worked together well was an expensive chore. Friends were blowing $600 on ammo to find the right combination.

I decided to stick with cheap and keep my distances short.

Grew up in the shotgun zone of Michigan, put many deer in the freezer with slugs. After trying many brands the 2 that shot the most accurate in both my slug guns, 870 w/ Hastings barrel & 11/87. Were the Remington Accu-Tips and Hornady SSTs. The Accutips grouped better and had way better performance on game. Average shot groups @ 100 yrds were in the 1.5-2.5" range with a 2-7x scope. They are my go to when needed. Have also put down several muleys and whitetails hunting on post in low velocity zones in the last few years with them. They are not cheap by any means but they are deadly. I have a couple of slugs that I recovered, could dig them out if you'd like. They yield some impressive expansion/ mushrooming.

In my experience a receiver mounted scope or dot may not return to zero when the barrel is taken off, like for cleaning. I have had much better luck with canti-lever barrels. I have an accurate Ithaca 37 that is frustrating if the barrel is removed. If ranges are short the factory iron will kill easily to 75 yards, 100 with the right combination. I will add if you find a good grouping load buy a bunch, different lots may not shoot the same.

Whatever sight you use make it a good one. 12 gauge slugs are hell on optics. I puked an older B&L 1.5x6 on my 1187 and it started randomly opening up from an inch at 50 yards to 3 feet. I doubt I had 50 rounds through it.

One of the downsides to the straight-wall phenomenon is slugs are back being second class citizens in the ammo manufacturing business. We reached the high water mark and now many of the really accurate slugs are either off the market or unobtainable. In Connecticut public lands require slugs or a muzzle loader and lately I find that for my woods hunting a rifled choke tube with old fashioned rifled slugs and iron sights works just fine.

What Shaman said is right. Back in the day, I shot a bunch of different stuff in a smoothbore. Mediocre results.

Then got a screw-in rifled choke and had to reshoot groups and found some different stuff that worked okay in it. But pretty much, meh.

Finally bought a fully-rifled barrel and after $300+ worth of ammo, found some decent stuff for it. Groups ranging between 3" and 18"+ at 100.

Well, that is until I happened upon a box of Remington Buckhammers and shot a box of them. Cloverleafs at 100 yards! Bought a couple more boxes and confirmed it. Talked to others who had similar results. Then learned that Remington was discontinuing them! Immediately went on a quest and bought all I could find- about 20 boxes- at about $13/ box (of 5).

Thought I was set for life. Turns out I was because a couple years after, Ohio opened up to "Pistol Cartridge Rifles". Got one and never looked back. Still have my 870 and the ammo though. I've had the gun for well over 30 years and have no plans of getting rid of it. Too many memories together.

Those Buckhammers shoot amazing like you mentioned in my rifled choke tubed 11/87 and man did they flatten deer.

The 12 gauge kills at both ends. Much nicer through an auto than my pump. I bought a bunch of 20 gauge when they discontinued them.

They were even fairly brutal in that old heavy 11-87 as well, but I endeared them enough to check zero and hunt. Even the old Remington 2 3/4 Mag Rifled Slugs shot plenty good too. The Buckhammers just seemed to make a nice even 1" hole through stuff. The blood trails were excellent!

I still have some really old Buckhammers I am shooting out of my 20 gauge 870. 3" 1550 fps and a one ounce slug are pretty close to 12 gauge ballistics and the gun is lighter. It does buck but I wish they hadn't quit making them.

I've taken a couple of deer with Federal TC sabot slugs. Accurate and do the job. Hornady FTX SSTs and Superperformance Monoflex group well but I havent tried them on animals.

Of all the sabot slugs I've fired, Hornady SSTs 300 grain 2000 fps are the quirkiest. I've shot them in fast and slow twist barrels. They definitely seem to group best out of slower twists. My Savage 212 with a 1/35" twist would group them into 1 inch at 100 yards. My Ithaca M37 with a 1/28" barrel would barely hold 10 inches at 100 yards. My Browning Maxus slug with a 1/28" won't group them very well, either. I've shot them from a Mossberg with a 1/36" (I think) and they grouped well using open sights. So they definitely seem to like a slower rate of twist. Your Mossberg may shoot them well. They have a lot of recoil. A gas gun will help soak that up.

I will say that of all the shotshell makers out there, Hornady is my least favorite. Their rims sometimes seem to be undersized and sloped. I've had a lot of extraction issues with Hornady SST slugs. Even guns with dual extractors will sometimes fail to pull them. I've shot so many different slug brands, I am convinced Hornady is doing something wrong. Ones I've calipered were smaller than Federal, Remington, and Winchester shells.

I've also have cycling problems with them, and some were noticably out of round.
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I have not had as many problems with Hornady Whitetail 325 grain sabot slugs. They are heavier than SSTs, and not as fast. The shoot reasonably well out of any gun I've shot them in. Though I have had some extraction issues.
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My go-to sabot slugs now are Remington Accutip 385 grain. They shoot very well out of all my guns. They will hold a couple of inches at 100 yards but that is using a non-magnified red dot. I've since mounted a variable power scope and hope to bring that to an inch or so. And they pack a whollop. Great slug no matter the twist - fast or slow, they seem to group very well.