ORIGINAL: davidmil
I don't hunt much with the gun anymore but do take a lot of deer with the bow. I hadn't shot a deer in several years with the gun. This morning I decided to take the shotgun out and do a little prowling as we have a lot of new snow to sneak around in. I shot a bedded buck across a little ravine at about 90 yards. Because of the angle I started it right at the front of his hind hip and the slug traversed up through him sticking under the skin on the back side of the off front shoulder. He jumped from his bed but only went about 10-15 yards. The next slug caught him at the base of the neck.
My question, here's a picture of the slug I dug out from under the skin. This thing looks like it's never been fired except for the back end sleeve or wad or whatever you call it on these Brenekes is a little chewed up. The front of the thing just looks slightly sandblasted. Is this normal performance? I expected this thing to mushroom a little but it's almost intact. Is that the way they are or is it because it was from about 90 yards away with a smooth bore Browning light 12? It was kind of nice to feel the old recoil of a gun for a change and see one drop like a sack.
VERY typical Brenneke performance. I've shot them into trees at short range with little or no expansion! Just a .70" caliber hole... But that's plenty big enough, since even a .30/'06 bullet doesn't expand to that diameter!!
The wad column is screwed onto the slug to keep it on, because a slug flies heavy-point forward, like a Badminton shuttlecock. The "rifling" has no effect except to make it easier for the slug to safely pass through tight chokes. The vanes actually produce little, if any, rotation - certainly not enough to stabilize the lead part! The "little rubber collar" on the end is a gas-check, intended to keep the powder gases behind the projectile component (slug & wads).
The Foster-type slug has a hollow base and heavy, solid nose portion, kinda like a Minie ball, to keep it flying point-forward. In my experience, the Brenneke is quite superior to the Foster, both as to accuracy and penetration power!! Funny thing, the Brenneke was designed around 1897 in Germany, while here we continued to shoot round "punkin balls" in our shotguns until in the 1930's. Then an American invented the Foster-type slugs, which are better than a round ball, but inferior to the Brenneke which predates the Foster by 40 years.....