Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 12Ga. Slug Use

I posted this in another furm, but noone is answering, so I took a chance and posted it here too!

In the most recent handloader, I saw a brief blurb about an Alaskan guide using a Brenneke slugs. So today I looked at theier performance on the Brenneke website - WOW! As I own a 12ga. 3" autoloader, I was thinking that I had a perfect application for these giant choo-choo's where I hunt!

Has anyone used these, and if so, will you please suffer the following questions?
1-what is the general accuracy of these, particularly in a smoothbore shotgun barrel?
2-What was the terminal effect on game/critters?

Thanks!

I'm not a writer but here goes...

Having lived in NY(parts shot gun only) and NJ (all shotgun) I've shot 20+ deer (including 2 this year)and 1 red squirrel with 1 1/8oz Brenneke short magnums (2 3/4"). One deer at 75 yards the rest inside 50. None ran more than 15 yards and most dropped where shot.

The wound channel looks like a 1" cookie cutter was pushed through the deer. I've never recovered a slug.

I'll go out on a limb and say inside 50 yards there's no more effective deer round.

Jim

edit: My A-5 shoots cloverleaf 3 shot groups @ 50yards.

Before switching over to rifled bbls and sabots about 8 yrs ago, the smoothbore Brenneke combo is all my family hunted with. Accuracy limited shots to 75yrds max, but the terminal results were always top notch! For use, they always resulted in two big holes through a very dead deer that never went very far.

Some smooth bore barrels shoot these quite well, others not at all. As an example, I have a smooth bore 870 barrel from the days before rifled choke tubes that shoots quite well with 2 3/4" sluggers, but not at all with 3" Sluggers or Breneke's. My buddies 870 shoot's all of them well. ? But my rifled choke tube shoots all of them into 2" at 50yds.

If your shotgun shoots them, they are very effective on deer, but I cannot honestly say they are any beter than a plain vanilla Foster type slug, especially the 3" Federal's with an 1 1/4Oz. slug. And they cost quite a bit more.

I shot a moose with a Brenneke slug from about 130 yards out of a Remington 870 smoothbore. Hit him in the lungs. The slug didn't exit. Cut a 3/4" hole on the entrance side of the chest. He went about 35 yards and bedded down, never to get up again. The Brenneke's have a good reputation in Alaska as a tough slug capable of stopping the big bears quite effectively.

My brother in law hunts with them in a 12. The only one that I've seen that didn't exit went in the rear ham, breaking the bone and proceeding to penetrate ~ 3 feet of deer. In his 1100, they're more accurate than the vent rib sights. Of the 2 guys that I know who use them, it seems that the trajectory is a bigger problem in putting it where it needs to be than the accuracy. 2 of my nephews use them in 20 gage and I've never seen one fail to exit.

Its kind of funny that shooters don't take slugs seriously. If the same ballistics came out of a rifle, most people wouldn't want a thing to do with it. Some kind of African elephant rifle. This is a long time ago, but when I was a kid, we only used slugs, being in the south part of Wisconsin. When somebody made a good hit on a deer, usually using the 2 3/4 Remington "Slugger" load, it looked like a horror movie. Some of the blood trails looked like you took a 5 gallon bucket of blood and started sloshing it around the woods. The range might be limited, but there is nothing better at killing deer.

I don't think that anyone who has uses slugs at short range would argue that they don't kill deer dead enough, but I don't think that very many slug hunters wouldn't choose a centerfire rifle in some flavor over thier shotgun given the choice. Pracice with slugs is expensive and the recoil is unpleasant. I still carry my slug gun sometimes for deer hunting, but all of my deer in the last 5 years have fallen to muzzle loaders. They are cheaper and more enjoyable (to me) to shoot and have better precision and a flatter trajectory.

Slugs do kill deer DEAD! but given the choice I personally would choose to use my rifle, why? lighter mostly....not anything to do with longer range shooting.....well maybe that a little.

Hello All
Residing in Ohio all deer hunting here is shotgun or muzzleloader. So I have shot large volumes of slugs to find the best combinations for several slug guns in my possesion.The Brenneke slugs have preformed very well in several guns, well enough that in a new arm they are usually the first thing tried.They offer 2460fpe/1025fpe from the muzzle to 100yds respectivly for the 2 3/4" Classsic load and 3014fpe/1219fpe at the same ranges for either the Black Magic or Gold Magnum loads in 3". Any of the above loads sighted in @ 2" high @50yds (slugs drop below super sonic speed around 75yds on average and need to be zeroed while above that for an accurate zero) will provide a center hold to 125yds on a whitetail with enough omph to do the job whe they get there. The primary diffrence in the Black Magic and the Gold Magnum is in the first the ribs are rotated to the right like all other rifled slugs (the ribs are there for the same reason as the grooves on a TSX Barnes bullet to give room for metal to be pushed around not to add rotation in flight to the target), While on the Gold Magnum the ribs are rotated to the left to provide greater gripping power on the rifling. All of these slugs are nose heavy designs that fly like a shuttle cock in badmitten.
nelson

They are good. They are not magic. Placement is still as important as with a rifle. Two years ago a good hunting buddy failed to anchor a buck with a quartering on shot that broke the shoulder but did not penetrate. That same deer made it past me, where the only shot I had was through some minor brush at less than 50 yards standing. I could see the first wound plainly. My shot never came close and the deer never walked into a clearing. He made it into a flooded section and was lost.

My slug gun has a rifled bore. Very accurate and with decent range. But slugs are no better at penetrating brush than any other round and that is, they are poor. Also, a bad shot with a slug is still a bad shot and shouldn't be taken.

Dan

Hello All
+1 Dan
Alot of deer are injured and unrecovered every year by people who don't learn to or take the time to shoot accuratly. That is not the fault of the arm or projectile of their choice or requirment.
Curriosity kills what slug was your buddy using?
nelson

Rem 870 with rifled choke and I believe Breneke but can't recall. I know the gun will shoot cloverleafs at 50 yards with his current set up and the shot was under 25 yards from a tree stand at about 15 feet.

Dan

Hello All
Thank you for the info same setup as one of mine with simular accuracy, though I've never had any but terrific results with it. Last year and this I switched to Buckhammers (2 3/4") from a fully rifled 1100 with a 1.5-5 Leupold that shoots 2-3" groups @ 100yds when I do my part right.Thie comming season may see a revisit to Lightfield with their 3" Elite load 1-1/8oz lead @ 1730fps.First box showed 4 of 5 shots in one hole @ 50yds from the bench from a Encore rifled barrel with a 2-7 scope.Although from past expierence I wouldn't hesitate to go back to my 870 and Brenneke slug combo.
nelson

I use the Brenekke MP slug in my slug gun. It is a 1 oz load that only goes 1500 fps but runs at proper lower pressures and is what my gun is regulated for. It will throw multiple pairs inside 2" at 50 meters landing right on top of the front sight. It has also worked well on both deer and hogs.

Hello All
Tony nice looking piece! However can't read all of the barrel markings. Who's the maker and where did you find it? I have been looking for a double with sights regulated for slugs awhile now. Only find was a Rota that split the stock every time fired and hit 2'+ from the non-adjustable sights.
nelson

The gun is made by Ugartechea. I have a number of "Uggie" SxS's and they have all been very fine guns. I picked this one up used about 5 years ago from Collectors Firearms in Houston for $400. Quite a steal to say the least, especially from that place. I have only seen one other on the net at a shop near Dallas and it was listed at $2100 and was sold a few weeks later. A gent on the Shooting Sportsman forum offered to trade an AYA 32 sidelock for it so I guess they are pretty hard to find. Mine has 25" barrels and weighs just a hair under 7 pounds and is a dandy to carry and shoot. It always brings a crowd at the range as folks first think that it is a double rifle.

Hello All
Thanks Tony.
nelson