Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Slug shotguns.

Gun-writers,
Given that there are US States that allow nothing but ... why is so little specific press afforded to them?
Cheers...
Con

IMO, because there is so little to be done with them or that is done with them. I live in a slug only (for the most part) state and know no one that loads their own. Very few even try more than one brand to site in and many don't even do that more than once. About the most tinkering you'll see is the mounting of a scope. Again that's just my take.

Most gun writers, in my observation, are not from slug-only states.

In the area where I live it is a shotgun only area for about 50 miles out, depending upon which way we go. A couple of us cast and reload our own slugs. The ones we use kick like a mad mule so are not shot much for fun. Our shotguns don't provide anything like the accuracy we get from our rifles so there isn't much incentive to start buying a bunch of different slug molds to get lighter slugs that will recoil less. The last time I checked the price of molds (quite a long time ago) they were around $80 to $90. Not a lot of reasons to play around with the shotguns, much rather play with the rifles.

Jim

Good points made so far. I would add that it seems that every slug gun has its preferences in terms of slugs that it likes to shoot. I would be interested in an article that looks at whether or not most slug guns of a particular make have the same preference.

... and yet considering only the 12guage. Hornady has one load in the SST, Winchester seems to have atleast 6 offerings in sabot style, Remington seems to have about 9 loads, Federal another half a dozen offerings. European manufacturers also produce slugs in the Brenneke style.

Ammunition makers seem to take it very seriously. Firearm manufacturers mostly seem to offer a dedicated slug gun (rifled barrel) plus perhaps a few 'cross-over' models in smooth bores.

Seems the industry treats them very seriously as a market segment ... and there are various combinations of twist rates in rifled barrels from slow 1:36" through to faster 1:24" aftermarket barrels, plus smoothbores with no choke, after-market rifled extended chokes etc etc etc...

It's as if the entire segment is shunned by dedicated shotgunning writers/experimenters perhaps due to the single projectile and non-insinctive shooting methods, and also by rifle writers/experimenters because it's 'not a rifle' and doesn't necessarily have the accuracy of a dedicated rifle.

Seems industry is investing lots of time and money and the press just isn't there to inform not only consumers ... but rifle loonies as well.
Cheers...
Con

Let's face it, a 100 yard "rifle" that kicks like a .458 is very boring, especially when you've shot rifles like .270s.

Good slug guns with ammo they like are far in excess of 100 yard guns. And mine kicks less than my 45/70.

Some gun writer somewhere must need an idea for a good article - they ought to be able to take a serious look at the available sabot loads for shotguns. Successful Hunter just published an article on long johns, for crying out loud.

Oh yeah, and $12+ for 5 cartridges isn't very exciting either.

When they come out with a $0.50 slug fired out of a <$500 repeater that is point blank to 300 yds and capable of accurate fire to 500 yds, with the recoil of a .270 then maybe I'll get excited.

Slugs aren't and never will be rifles. They are just ugly step sisters.

Slug only deer hunting in populated area's especially in the mid west and the east has been on the rise due to increased urban sprawl for over 10 years. Slug shooters have wanted more accuracy and precision slug guns than what traditionaly had been offered.

The various single shot slug guns, the savage 210/220f series and Brownings re-introduction of their 12 gauge bolt gun at $1,000 per gun is answering the demand of slug gun deer hunters that can equal centerfire rifle accuracy.

The performance level of factory slug ammo has evolved that now the 20 gauge bullets kill like a 12 gauge and equal most muzzleloader loads in performance.

If the slug gun manufacturers would just standardize the twist rates in their barrels especially in 12 gauge we all would save money in testing different brand of slugs. The 1/28 twist used in 20 gauge slug barrels mimic's the .50 standard in almost all muzzleloading barrels.

The future holds continued improvement in slug ammo but unfortunately at much higher cost. You get what you pay for.

Handloading of slugs will increase for the hard core slug hunter
and can be done for nominal cost...under $1.50 per load.

I only wish MMP who makes most of the industry's muzzle laoding sabots would enter the slug sabot business giving us more load options at economical sabot.

Doc

Because they suck to shoot! Seriously, I�ve done a grand total of ONE slug gun article and I hated it. Shooting a 12ga slug gun from a bench is not fun at all. Immediately after I did that article, I did an article on .22lr single shot rifles.

I have a 12ga 870 that I used to use as a slug gun. Started out with a factory stock. I know what you mean Kevin, punishing didn't begin to describe it!

Put a custom wide, high-comb stock on it and it was much better. Turned the wallop into a push. But it was still heavy recoil and it still screwed with your shooting, especially from field positions. It would shoot 3 shot groups of about 2" @100 from a bench, but was very inconsistent in the field compared to a rifle.

If you don't have a decent stock, you have to have an autoloader to make a 12 shootable.

It�s different when it�s YOUR slug gun vs. a writer doing a piece on a slug gun or new slug ammo. When it�s your gun, you bench it, sight it in, shoot a quick group, and with any luck the only time it�s ever back on the bench is to reaffirm your zero each year. When shooting at game, rarely do you ever notice the recoil because your blood is pumping. When you�re at the bench�1- you�re at the bench, which is never good where recoil is concerned. 2- You�re typically shooting strings of shots, which translates to meat tenderizing.

When I did the slug article they offered to send me a �Lead Sled�, but they hadn�t hit the warehouses yet and it would have put me a month behind on deadline, so I told them to keep it. I think if I had a lead sled, I wouldn�t mind the slug gun articles so much. But I�m here to tell you, unless I have a lead sled, I won�t EVER do another slug gun article; forget it!!

On the bright side, I did learn that slug guns are very capable and a good shooter can score out to 200 yards if he�s careful. I shot both fully rifled and rifle choked versions and found that the rifle choked versions shot surprisingly well, capable of 2.5 MOA accuracy all day long, which is more than enough to score out to 200 yards on deer sized game.

In the same article I tested a Mossberg 500 .50 muzzle loader conversion barrel that shot 1.25 MOA all day long; very impressive for something that was never intended to be a muzzle loader, or a rifle for that matter.

All in all, I shot over 60 rounds of slugs for that article and killed 2 scopes�never again

They do suck to shoot. This year I changed to a Ruger 77/44 to deer hunt with. Although it shoots very little better than my slug gun, recoil is so much lighter, and it kills deer just as dead. And I can reload for it.

In southwest Indiana slugs cost 15 to 18 dollars for a box of 5 for the upper end sabot loads that my gun likes. Due to cost and recoil, I will never shoot another slug load, they are no fun to shoot.

PaPa260

There's a reason Forster slugs were invented.

Your right about the Foster style slugs, they are much cheaper. But at least in my rifled barrel they lead it so bad that after 5 to 7 shots the barrel is so full of lead it shoots about 10 to 12 inch groups at 50 yards.

PaPa260

I have had an Ithaca Deerslayer in 12ga for quite a while. It shoots regular slugs quite well and mine would be effective at 100 yds.

Before I got the drilling I carried it in VT as a make do combination gun loading bird shot for the grouse and carrying slugs. It did well on short ranged birds and its 20" barrel is not a problem.

A buddy borrowed it and got a deer in CT.

I have not handled it in decades.

I wanted to show the nice wood and how they pressed in the so called checkering. Too bad. The scope is a Redfield 2X and its a little better than irons! The gun weighs 7lb, 9oz.

Its forend got cracked and it has fancy wood as well. My late dad fixed it up with epoxy.

I've actually done a few shotgun-slug articles, and own two rifled barrels, one a 12-gauge for the Remington 870 and one a 20-gauge for a T/C Contender carbine. My wife and I have taken deer, black bear and moose with them, partly because even here in Montana there are areas where rifles aren't legal. We have one such area right next to our small town, a 6-square-mile Wildlife Management area where you can only use shotguns, muzzleloaders and "tradition" handgun rounds--which is where my wife took her antlerless moose with the 12-gauge 870 barrel a couple of years ago.

I've not only taken my biggest black bear with a slug (when hunting on Vancouver Island) but know very well how long-ranged a good set-up can be. A few years ago I hunted in northwest Iowa with the 20-gauge T/C Contender barrel, using Winchester sabot load with Nosler Partition hangdun bullets at close to 2000 fps. This grouped into 2" or so at 100 yards, and though I never saw a buck I wanted, I did finish off a medium-sized buck another hunter had wounded--at over 200 yards.

But even though places that require slugs aren't limited to a few states there just isn't much interest by average hunters in reading about it, or even making their slug guns better. Most of the people who hunt the area next to our town just buy some buckshot (legal here) for their bird guns and blast away at the disappearing flags of whitetails. The serious hunters use muzzleloaders or, once in a while, a handgun. I've used both myself--partly because even if you use a shotguns, sabot ammo isn't allowed. (This may change soon--and then again it may not.)

As others have already pointed out, most hunters who use slug guns do so out of necessity. Unlike rifle loonies, they're not fascinated with slug guns, so they buy the minimum stuff necessary, and even then don't really lean into it. When I hunted Iowa I ran into a few other hunters, and never saw one hunting with a scoped shotgun--and quite a few just shot their bird gun loaded with slugs. The favored local method seemed to be drives where the boys laid down barrages at running deer with their pumps and autoloaders. In other words, most hunters who use slug guns are about as interested and competent as the average rifle hunter.

I've also seen the same thing with many hunters who use modern muzzleloaders. They buy the cheapest gun possible, a handful of bullets, and some powder pellets. Once they get the gun more-or-less sighted-in, they go hunting.

When my friend Doug Phair, who owns Western Powders, introduced Blackhorn powder a few years back, he was very puzzled when they didn't sell more, becaise it works really great in modern muzzleloaders. I told him most hunters who used modern muzzleloaders aren't rifle loonies, so they aren't going to try new stuff--or, if they do, they aren't going to buy much to go shooting every weekend with their $149.99 in-line. That's not why they buy a muzzleloader, and the same thing applies to most slug hunters.

I have shot a ton of slugs through 870's in the course of my job, both as an instructor and in training. The guns are all smooth bore and the slugs all Forster type, the brands vary. What I have noticed is that slugs are really forgiving and surprisingly accurate. Beyond 25 yards I cannot say but I can consistently hit center A zone shots at that distance even with a shotgun that has seen several hundred rounds through it over the course of a day. Leading doesn't seem to be a problem with smooth bores. I don't know about rifled slug barrels as I have never used one.

We have a local winter hot spot hunt for problem moose. It is by drawing and is shotgun only. On a whim I took my Beretta O/U out to see how it printed with slugs. I installed the skeet chokes and shot offhand at 25 yards using only the front bead and the same sight picture I would have with a flat straight away bird. I convinced myself that I don't need a dedicated slug gun on the off chance I get drawn for one of these hunts. The Beretta will do just fine. Might be fun to bench it to see just what it is capable of.

Shot 1 was in the orange bull, shot 2 at 4:30, shots 3 & 4 are the two above the bull and shot 5 was at 5:30. The shots were taken as fast as I could recover and gain a sight picture trying to duplicate what I might face in the field.

The Savage 220f is a complete pussycat at the bench and in the field. It packs a strong punch on target, and kills in a way that has to be seen to believe. Accuracy is quite easy to obtain, and the range is there on par with the .45/70.

CSS Sabots makes anything a shotgun shell reloader needs to make custom loads for both the 12ga and the 20ga. Handgun bullet selection is quite wide.

McMillan even inlets their stocks for those wishing to upgrade from the factory plastic.

I'm no "gunwriter"... just a hunter and shooter.