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

You don't need a pump here's a family that met my Marlin 512 bolt action was a fun 7 seconds and then 4 hours of misery getting them off the mountain...couldn't do that with a muzzleloader

I like them both and use whichever one I feel is most appropriate for the occasion. Obviously the laws must be followed. In Iowa I have been known to carry both up into my stand. My Iowa muzzleloader is a REMPAC 45 smokeless powder and I use 70 grain of H4198 and I will use the same muzzleloader for the PA. inline season. I use a flintlock during PA primitive weapon season. Shotgun with buckshot here in VA. Beach. The more guns the merrier.

Is there one? Sure. They'd be pretty rare though.

But this is the internet and i am sure there are plenty guys who'll speak of or show the one best "2 shots touching and I pulled the 3rd" group of all time at 75 yards and post it as an "all day long" 100 yard group.

The savage 210/220 and H&R single shots are a different story though. Very consistant.

Unless considering the above named shotguns or a semi custom (tarhunt), on the averages, a typical ML will be more consistently accurate than a typical shotgun.

ALso consider ammo. Shotguns can be picky in the slugs they prefer. Some shotgun slug ammo is ridiculously priced. YOu could spend a few hundred bucks testing brands and practicing at long range. With a ML you can load develop at the bench and save money via economy of scale. Something to consider.

Obviously either way , SG or ML will work.

That savage 220 is really at a whole other level than an 870, rifled barrel, & scope. If you are leaning SG, I'd strongly consider it.

My smoothbore 870 will do 3 into <3" @ 100, but only with Remington Sluggers (Foster type) and German-made Brenneke MPs. Won't do it with Kent's or any other brand of Foster's.

However, I'm tired of the recoil & short range and shoot an inline whenever I'm limited to the crap guns.

I am not sure anyone has said this explicitly yet, but maybe you want to hunt them both?

Every year I hunt both lower MI and our farm in west-central IL - many days I actually carry both guns afield. I will sling the ML when moving, walking in or out, still hunting or on a drive and in the same day I could sling/drop the slug gun and sit a ridge or field edge with the ML out on pack or bi-pod.
The 12ga is set up with a 2-7x33 hvy duplex and the ML with either a 2.5-8 or 3.5-10x with CDS tested out to 400yards. (both with smokeless powder (IL) and BH209 (MI)

In areas east of the Mississippi and other states like it, I have not felt handicapped toting both guns. But, I am not hiking a ton of vertical either.
Just a thought if you have the time and funds to buy and wring out both.

If the prescribed event warranted the use of a Savage firearm I would just bow out. God forbid being the operative phrase.

Me two, I would and do hunt during an extra muzzleloader season to extend my hunting, but just won't participate in anymore "shotgun" only type of hunts. Been there done that way too long in my life. I'd find a different place to hunt unless it was my home area.

it leaves enough blood but the statement was rifle.Personally i prefer rifle and now that my area opened up rifle it is what i use.I either carry a 300 savage or a 444 marlin. now in board terms like the statement a rifle does everything a shotgun does equal or better. do you say the blood from a 243 is equal to a 20 or 12 ga.I say no i've had deer run 80 yards without blood trail but they stopped 82 yards from shot.if you want to compare one rifle why not pic the 600 nitro express.I would say the average rifle being used hunting is not the 45 300gr bullet.

By "rifle" I believe a muzzle loading rifle was what was meant. Now I at least better understand where you were coming from. And hopefully, you I......

yes i wasn't thinking muzzleloader.In the end we are on same page i just didn't realize it.

Not me. I wasn't thinking MLing rifle. They are crap too compared to a modern rifle. Give me a 30/06. Shotguns are a piss poor substitute for an '06.

John, I know you are being facetious, but we suffer under some tremendously stupid laws. Laws that need to be changed. I've had enough of this 19th century BS and all the GD Fudds in these Eastern states. It's time to move on to at least 1903.

I didn't realize that. Will be sure to use a .30-06 next time I hunt in the local shotgun/muzzleloader area.

I guess if you're not capable of hitting a home run steroids get you over the fence

I've "hit a homer" every year for over 25 years in spite of the handicap.

That doesn't change the fact that a rifle is more accurate, more deadly, has better range, uses cheaper ammo, and kicks less than the BS guns.

I'll give you the more range,less recoil( dependent on caliber you are shooting)and cheaper ammo....I'll disagree on the accuracy and more deadly

Heck, when hunting back east in those very areas (semi-populated flatlands), I've had rifled slugs go whistling past me. BarryC is right, a 180 grain partition out of an '06 would be much better in those circumstances.

There's a whole lotta mountains & hills where I stand.

No reason they couldn't make the rules by zone. They already do that with dates, bag limits, etc., & etc.

In VA, that's exactly what they do. On the coastal plain, shotguns. In the Piedmont and mountains, rifles.

When I can run a 195 gr Barnes bullet down range at 2650 fps + and very good accuracy, I will opt for the muzzleloader. Smokeless muzzleloading is a wonderful thing!

they do I just happened to hunt the majority in slug gun only county