Originally Posted by
7.62NATO
With the standard Remington chokes, my patterns with Remington buckshot were awful. I'd probably get 2-3 pellets in the 10-inch circle I was aiming for at 50 yards. With rifled slugs, I was hitting high about 8-10 inches and left about 4 inches and at 100 yards I couldn't even hit paper (COMPLETELY unusable in the field). Now, granted I was very new to guns at the time and didn't try a variety of buckshot and rifled slugs in my gun to see what worked best (costs a few bucks to do also!!). But, in retrospect, with patterns and accuracy that poor, I don't know if there would have been a magic load that would have cured the issue.
But I decided to try one of those "magic chokes" instead. I ordered a Wad Wizard (google it...I don't think we're allowed to post links to commercial sites but I may be confused with another forum's rules) and decided to give that a whirl. Lo and behold, using the same cheapo rifled slugs, I was hitting an inch high and an inch left at 50 yards, with holes touching just about every time (using just a front bead...no rifle sights). Using the same buckshot, I put 7 pellets in a 10-inch circle at 50 yards. Both completely usable in the field.
So, if you're on a budget, I'd take your Benelli out as is, use a modified choke, and try a few types of buckshot and a few types of slugs (some of the ones suggested by the other posters in this thread) and see how she does. If the gun doesn't perform well, I'd say it was time to look into an alternate choke, an alternate barrel (not really a good option IMO...you can buy a whole gun for just a little more than an aftermarket rifled barrel), or look into a slug gun. Of course, if it were me, I'd just buy a muzzleloader (assuming they are legal where you are going to hunt...MOST areas that allow shotguns also allow muzzleloaders). That way you can hit the muzzleloader only seasons that you'll miss with a shotgun.
I just realized (after NATO's comment on poor groups) that one major problem I had early on with my slug gun was that I was not letting my barrel cool down between shots. The barrel of a shot gun is much more thin than the barrel of a rifle (even on my rifled barrel) and as you shoot it really tends to open up and it will KILL your groups. I would suggest shooting only about 3 slugs at a time and waiting about 10 minutes between groups just to make sure that you are not wasting ammo (which can be quite expensive) and so that you are not overlooking a box that may work particularly well in your gun.
Also, I haven't had any experience with rifled chokes but it may be a cheaper option to consider if you aren't wanting to put the money into a rifled barrel. But rifled barrels don't have to be overly expensive--I bought one for my mossberg 535 for $200 with a boresighted bushnell 3-9x40 scope and I have no trouble getting 2.5" groups at 130 yards with a cold barrel. But like NATO said above, what you want to invest in will depend entirely on your budget and how often you will be using a shotgun for deer.