Why limit yourself to 50 yards with a muzzle loader, 30 yards with a bow and arrow? Or even closer with a blow dart? Because of the sport of is. I mean conversly why not just use a .50 bmg for everything and shoot things from 1000 yards away? Where is the sport? Proper buckshot hunting is VERY sporting, the patterns are too tight and the vital zone on an animal is too small to not "aim". That is a common myth, shotguns must be aimed like anything else. There is a larger margin of error, but not by much.

From Squirrel to Elephant, the Shotgun is your gun.