Slug gun help needed!!!
 

I put my fathers 11-87 20 ga. together and shot it today for the first time. It has a 21 inch fully rifled barrel with the cantilever scope mount. A Nikon 2-7x32mm Prostaff Shotgun Scope mounted in Leupold PRW low rings. As I do with my 11-87 12 ga., I tighten the barrel nut as tight as I can get it with my hand and then I put a piece of nylon around it and I tighten it one more click with pair of channel locks. The gun was clean and the barrel was dry. I was shooting with both the front fore-end and rear stock resting on sand bags.

I shot at 25 yards first to make sure I was on paper. The first round hit about 4 inches low and two inches to the left. I adjusted the elevation and my next shot was about two inches high and still 2 inches to the left, right where expected it would be.

Then I move to 100 yards. My first shot was about five inches high and about four inches to the left. I then made both elevation and windage adjustments to bring my group to the center of the target where I was aiming. I fired two more shots and I couldn't believe it. All over the place. The first shot was about 8 inches high, the next shot was about three inches low. Both shots stayed to the left. All my shots at this point were with Hornady SST slugs. I then tried a few Winchester Partition Golds and a few Remington Core Lokt Ultra slugs. I got the same results.

I was extremely p*ssed off. As I always do I took out my Remington 700 Classic in 280 Rem. and fired a four shot group at 100 yards that was about an inch and a half. I then fired one shot at a 8 inch steel plate hanging at 200 yards.....ping and it rocked back and forth.

I'm getting similar groups with my 11-87 12 ga. That problem is more of a scope problem. I took my Leupold off of it and I can hear and feel something moving around inside when I shake it back and forth by my ear. It's even more apparent when the scope is turned all the way down to 2 power. Leupold told me I shouldn't hear anything and I sent it back.

This 20 ga. is killing me though. Right before I left the range and the 20 ga. had cooled down for about 20 minutes, it was about 40° out, the gun was stone cold, as cold as the steel chair I was sitting on. I fired my last three shots at 50 yards. I moved on the first shot, the next two shot were touching. The whole group was about three inches. Again I moved on the first shot. I'd like to think that my problem might be the barrel getting to warm. I'm really not sure about this either though. My first couple of shots at 100 yards were after the gun had cooled down for a while.

I was really hoping that both our shotguns would shoot the higher velocity slugs 1900 to 2000 fps slugs. I'll take all advise I can get. I'm leaving for hunting camp Friday the 17th. I'll probably only get to go to the range one more time before Friday.

I'm also going to try Lightfield slugs. I just got off the phone with a friend of mine. He knows a few guys that just couldn't get the 1900 plus fps slugs to shoot out of their guns. They went with slower velocity slugs and now they shoot great. I had a 870 12 ga. that would group Lightfields under 3 inches at 100 yards. Suddenly I regret selling that gun!

RE: Slug gun help needed!!!
 

Try hornaday sst's, they work great in my 870 also in my sons 1100 both rifled barrels. Rich

RE: Slug gun help needed!!!
 

The first five rounds I fired were Hornady SST's.[/align]

RE: Slug gun help needed!!!
 

Don't mean to hijack this post, but i was wondering if its OK to shoot slugs out of my 870 with the smoothbore barrel on it. my buddy says it might not be alright, would it say somethin on the barrel or somewhere else? Its a 870 magnum wingmaster if that makes any difference. Thanks alot, i was hopin to use it during gun deer season as a brush buster, but not if its gonna trash my barrel.

RE: Slug gun help needed!!!
 

I have been hearing a lot of rifled slug bbl's don't shoot well with the high velocity stuff , probably the twist rate of the bbl. . You already know to try diff.ammo in each individual gun , they all shoot diff..
Are you comparing a high powered rifle to a slug gun?

schobs
You can shoot rifled slug ammo if you have a slug bbl. ( smooth bore )or a improved choke bbl. and if you have a removable choke , you can use a rifled choke tube with sabot or rifled slugs. Sabots are for rifled bbl..Another problem you will find is sights , that bird bead just don't make it for slug gun hunting , although people do harvest deer with them. I prefer a scope , my eyes are not what they used to be.I have saddle mounted ( B Square ) ,scopes on both my 1100smooth boreslug bbl.w/ rifle sights & 870 mag. w/rifled choke tube. I have harvested deer @ 100 yds with bothusing rifled slugs .
I used to shoot slugs from my 28" VR ,mod. bbl .1100 and went to a slug smooth bore bbl. , I opened that mod. up a little , enough to have it cut to 24" and have a removable choke tube custom made for Turkey hunting .

RE: Slug gun help needed!!!
 

I certainly could be wrong about this, but it is possible that the problem is due to over-torquing the barrel nut so that when the barrel gets hot, things expand and relax to the point that the barrel starts pointing somewhere else than it did when cold. Try it again with the barrel nut just hand-tight, and see what happens.

An alternative would be to let the barrel get completely cooled off before firing the next shot. This might be better anyway, since it is generally where the first shot from a cold, clean barrel goes that determines if you will be eating venison or tail feathers!

RE: Slug gun help needed!!!
 

Back in 1954, my father joined the US Navy.

While he was stationed at Great Lakes Naval Academy, he bought a Remington Model 721 Rifle and also a Remington Model 870 Wingmaster 20 gauge shotgun.

My dad sent them home to his mother’s house for safekeeping.

My Uncle’s - who were several years younger than my dad, did not own any guns of their own desired to hunt. So my dad let them use his guns while he was away.

My Uncle Bob used my dads 20 ga and his other brother Bill used his model 721 that year to hunt deer.

It seam’s that on the opening day of antlerless deer season that a doe came down to my uncle Bob - about 50 yards away. My uncle Bob shot it in the head with open sights, field dressed it and took it home. The next day they went out again and the same thing happened at the same place at the same time and my uncle Bob again shot a doe in the head at 50 yards with the same shotgun and the same box of 2 3/4 Remington slugs.

My fathers Uncle Bid came into the garage where they were butchering the animals and was looking at their harvest. His comment was that unless someone told him different, he believed that the same person shot both deer! The holes were in the same place at the same angle and the same size.

Back then; you were only allowed one deer per a year!

That particular shotgun would consistently shoot a 1-inch bulls eye at 50 yards with no sights at all.

My dad used the barrel as a club to dispatch rabbits when he small game hunted and it bent the barrel and he had to sent out and get a poly choke put on it - because the metal was not properly heat treated in that area.

So I could not tell you what it would do today.

But that was at a time when people still did not have a lot of money - in a defunct coal-mining town, where people lived through the depression and made due with what they had.

All these fancy gadgets that you put on that gun isn't going to make it any better than what it was the day it came out of the factory new.

If you want your shotgun to shoot like a rifle, you ought to use a rifle.

RE: Slug gun help needed!!!
 

The only reasonI mentioned the 280 Rem. is because I shot it right along side the 11-87. WhenI go to sight in any gun, I always bring one or twoI know is shooting good.If I'm having problemsgetting the oneI'm there to sight in to shoot good, I'll shoot one that I know is shooting good to make sure it isn't me. I've always done this. I've had bad days shootingbefore, I'm human. To tell you the truth though, the only guns I've had trouble sighting in have been slug guns. The recoil doesn't bother me. I don't know what it is.[/align][/align]I'm going to try Lightfield Slugs. [/align]

RE: Slug gun help needed!!!
 

Actually eldeguello, you might be on to something. I posted this on a few different sites and someone else mentioned the same thing. I'm going to try it hand tight to see what happens.[/align]

RE: Slug gun help needed!!!
 

If I could use a rifle to hunt deer I probably wouldn't even own a shotgun to tell you the truth. In most of New York Stateyou can use arifle. Unfortunately our hunting camp is in a "shotgun/muzzleloader/handgun only" county, sowe can't use rifles to hunt deer. [/align]