Been there - done that.

The " old style" , " pumpkin ball" or foster slugs (call ' em what ya will) do shoot pretty darn good thru rifled barrels. They also do a pretty darn good job of leading up the barrel (actually the rifling). It can take alot of brushin to get it out.

The rifled barrels are designed for sabots, to grab hold of the plastic sabot and impart the stabilizing spin. The rifling also grabs the foster slugs and imparts spin on them. But as the rifling is putting a spin on the slug, the rifling is peeling (or kinda like micro-shaving) a nice ultra thin layer of lead off the slug. Round after round the shaving continues and the heat and pressure compacts the build up tighter and tighter. Eventually, the riflings sharp edges are level with a tapered off amount of lead build up. Without a serious scrubbing to remove the leading, the sabots will have a real hard time getting a spin going. It' s common to see the sabots tumbling thru the paper target, leaving a sideways profile hole, because with no imparted spin there is no stability.

It is intresting how Brenneke states that all of it' s slugs (except I believe the KO' s) are safe for rifled barrels. Safe? Yes. High maintenance...DEFINATELY! (Lots of cleaning) I don' t think anyone in the slug business has been around even half as long as Brenneke has been making slugs.

Probobly my favorite load out of my H&R Ultra Slug would be the Brenneke 3-inch Gold Magnum' s. Their price is nice too. I pay about $6-7/box. Compared with $12-13/box for sabots.

One thing most guys don' t realize (and it doesn' t make alot of difference killing-wise) is that a sabot slug is considerably lighter, although faster that a Foster slug.
This leads to a loss of delivered energy. The sabot is 1-200 feet per second faster, but would need to be probobly more like 500 feet per second faster to make up for the lost energy difference. (Math might not be exact, but hey, I' m lover not a scientist. The idea is sound I assure you.)

Pop a deer with an ounce and three-eighths of hot Brenneke lead and they go right down, they are truly incredible. I don' t like looking for deer that try for the next county when hit.

Uncle Matt (in IL)