rybohunter

I'm not looking to blame something for missing a deer, buttonight really makes me wonder.
It was maybe a 30-35 yds shot, quartering to slightly,in WIDE open woods. At the shot, there was just a little "crack" and almost NO kick. I know you really don't feel the kick when shooting at an animal anyways but this was nuts. The deer just turned easy and trotted away. There was snow, so I'm 110% sure of a miss. I'm no sniper by any means, but I'm not going to blow a shot like that either. What really makes me think it was a dud was the weird crack. My slug gun doesn't make a small crack. It booms, and it kicks. I actually even emptied the gun to check for a barrel obstruction, I was so confused.

Simp

Yep, you more that likely had a misfire. Nothing but the primer went off. Kinda sounds like one of those little white snap caps. You were smart to look for the slug in the barrel. Reminds me of the time when I was in the Marines. We were training with the shotgun, shooting slugs, and one of the shotguns had a misfire.The Marine ejected the shell and didn't say anything about it and simply handed the shotgun to the next Marine in line to shoot.That Marine loaded his rounds in and fired his first shot and immediately knew something was terribly wrong because the entire front half of the shotgun simply disappeared! He, as well as everyone else that was around him was very lucky not to get seriously injured. I was standing no more than 20 feet away from him when it went off. A little piece of "something" nicked my finger and the shooter's hand was numb for a day or so afterward, but other than that no one was hurt.

Nice job double checking that barrel!

1shotkill1993

yup just a dud

FossilThomas

wow that sucks!

Hotburn76

I never had a dud, but had some bad Winchesters once. I took my nephew out for his first deer hunt, about three years ago. A doe comes out about forty yards. He pulled up to shoot and just a click. tried two different shells before the deer seen us and took off. Here after looking at the shells you could see the primers where in wayto deep and the pin could not reach it. He was pretty bummed, and I was pretty hot! No more Winchesters for me!!

Lubricious

Ive seen it happen. The military calls it a light recoil.

Paul L Mohr

It happens from time to time. I have never had it happen with a shotgun, but have with rifles and especially .22 rimfires.

Good job on looking for a barrel obstruction. I would bet most of the injuries and barrel blow ups are from something like this happening and people don't check the barrel.

Out of curiousity what type of ammo was it. I have never had that great of luck with Remington ammo. Oddly enough I have really good luck with winchester. I guess any of them can have problems though. After they are made by humans like you and me. I work in a factory, screw ups are bound to happen.

Paul

AmateurHunter44857

I wouldn't call it a dud but i had some remington sluggers that wobbled in the shell and when you shook them you could hear them shaking around. I only checked by accident i heard something shake and had no idea what it was. I found 4 more like that 3 of which were loaded in my gun. I replaced them and 3 hours later had my deer.

rybohunter

They were remington copper solids. I don't know how much this should matter, but they were older shells. I don't slug hunt too often so the ones I bought a while back are still around. They will only be used at the range now though.
I got some new ones and killed a doe the next day