Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Slug Gun or Muzzleloader

Probably more a matter of personal choice and preference. Muzzleloader or slug gun if set up properly will get the job done on whitetails without a hitch.

While a muzzleloader can be set up to be a 200 yard gun, so can a slug gun with a fully rifled barrel and sabot slugs. Set up a high quality muzzleloader like a .50 cal Encore with the right 200 grain bullets and 150 grains of propellent, and you can bust 6 inch ballons at 250 yards offhand with a sling wrapped around your arm all day long without batting an eye. Really a matter of ranges you'll encounter and what you prefer to use.

A smoothbore barreled slug gun set up properly is a 125 yard gun in either 12 or 20 gauge persuasion.

I don't feel out of place at all hunting deer with a SHOTgun, been doing it since the mid sixties. The kids and I have killed a passel of them with SHOTguns, I hope that doesn't mean we have to hunt ducks now with a 30-06.

I guess it comes from growing up in the Socialist Republic of NJ, where you can't use a centerfire rifle for deer, shotgun or muzzleloader only, so I grew up playing with slug guns and trying to make them more 'rifle' than SHOTgun.

This one, while a smoothbore 20 gauge, is definitely more comfortable shooting slugs than it is shot, and my preferred weapon for hunting deer where it is SHOTgun only up to ranges of 125 yards. If ranges were to be beyond that, then I'd reach for one of my slug guns with a fully rifled barrel.