Champlain Islander

I haven't been impressed with the Lightfields. Quite a few of my hunting buddies use them and for the life of me I can't figure out why. They are large slow loads and I don't see where they can compare to a 1900 feet per second premium slug. One shot kills are rare for my friends who use the Lightfields. I suspect the problem might be just what you pointed out about bullet break up. I have 4 boxes of the Winnie Gold Partitions left butI plan on trying the Federal Barnes product on the range this summer to see how they fly.

Hunter_59

It's amazing the differences of opinion on things! I have used the SST for 2 hunting seasons now and absolutely love them. I have my gun zeroed at 150 yds., it hits 6" low at 200 yds., just like the box says. My '06 buck was shot at 198 yds. and dropped him in his tracks. My '07 buck was shot at 85 yds. and dropped him in his tracks! Shot placement is still the key, no matter what the load!
358, you sound like you've done your fair share of shooting, could it be trigger pull poundage? I think this is the most common mistake made by slug gun hunters. They use the gun on small game and flying birds where trigger pull is not as noticeable. Then you attempt to use it as a scoped rifle and all of a sudden the gun us unmanageable and everyone blames the shell. I believe if your trigger poundage is over 3 1/2 lbs., then it definately needs some work. I firmly believe this is the most common malodyfaced by slug gun hunters.

AmateurHunter44857

Now here is where there is another difference of opinion lol. I saw first hand lightfields dropping 4 different deer with one shot. 3 were spine shots and the 4th was a double lung shot. The spines dropped immedietely and the double lung ran 30 yards and dropped.

Hunter_59

AH, Don't let a few spine shots convince you of a loads abilities! I'm not knocking the lightfields here, in fact never used them, but being a bow hunter also, I can drop a moose in his tracks with a spine shot! You need to evaluate a loads performance on thehits to the boiler room.The 30 yd. double lung hit is the good hit! If ashot is well placed, double lung, shoulder, and brings thequarry down in a reasonabledistance then the load stands as a good load in my book. I'm fine with the 30-50 yd. run after the shot.I don't careif the load breaks apart, in fact this may provide for more internal damage in some cases. As long as the end result is a dead deer, then all is well!

Champlain Islander

Spined deer will go down even when hit with a broad head. My comment was only made as a result of hunting over several seasons with some very good deer hunters who use the Lightfields and have harvested lots of game. Many of those needed additional shots to kill the deer with decent initial shot placement. The SST is a great bullet and the performance on game isn't in question. The issue was accuracy out ashotgun. Like every other gun and bullet combination some fly better than others on a given gun. You can have one gun shoot sub MOA with a certain load and the same caliber and manufactured gun not be as accurate. That is the hard part about all this. Bullets and slugs are getting expensive and finding the most accurate load can cost a bunch of money. Some are satisfied with something that is marginal and will settle for less. Others such as 358 are continually tweaking to find something better. Rifleman said you can't make a shotgun into a rifle and he is right. I use a rifle, shotgun and ML and need all 3 to be able to be accurate out to 200 yards in order for me to be happy with them. With enough trial, error and time any gun can shoot better.

358WINMAN

Hunter59-
I'm glad at least one fella has commented that the SST's have shot well for him! I was starting to worry about the Quality Control from Hornady! I should say that your barrel and the load are a match!!!
As for slug breakup, thats a problem here in NJ. There's an unwritten rule that goes something like this:" Whoever puts the deer down, it's thiers"!!! I've shot Lightfields to hit behind the shoulder and blow out the ribs. The deer often take off on their death run and drop 50-100 yds away, where another hunter is sitting and drops your deer with his shot. Whamo, you lose!!! Go back to your stand and try again!
I then started shooting directly at the shoulder to break it and thus drop the deer in its tracks. Works great with a rifle,or with foster slugs from a smoothbore. I wanted to increase my accuracy and range, so the rifled barrel, scope and sabots were the way to go. I found the Lightfileds to be exceptionally accurate in my gun, but the slug broke apart on the boney shoulder. Had a few with one lung destroyed, the other intact on deer. Also had a significant quartering away shot at one good 8 pt buck( 155lbs dressed). The slug enetred just in front of the rear ham, went up into the paunch and never made it to the vitals( found it broken in the liver/stomach). Had to track for over an hour and finish him off at 20 yds with a slug to the neck. Not my favorite type ofresults! I like one slug, one deer kills at any distance! Hence, my efforts with the SST's.
So, I'm back at square one and will try to create a new combo that works well and that I trust shot after shot!
I know what my rifles can do and what my handloads do everytime I take a shot. I want the same confidence in my old, but good slug gun. Yes, the trigger has never been worked, but then all my shots should be sloppy if it was the trigger's fault. Why then would some brands of slugs shoot well and others stink? Probably like a rifle: some barrels like certain bullets and thats that! My reloading bench consists of Nosler's Partitons, Bal Tips, Hornady's V-Maxs, Barnes TSX's and Sierra's Game Kings. Each bullets duty varies with the load/powder combo and out of which rifle I shoot it. True, my fault for not doing more homework on the SST slug, but in retrospect, 5 shots at 50 and 5 at 100yds were all I felt I needed. This time, I'll take the new scope and new slug to the next level. Its gonna' be expensive($4.00 p/slug), but worth it in the end.
When this slug gun is put into retirement, I think I'll go with a bolt action shotgun like a Tarhunt, Browning or Savage110. Any of you use these already?

uncle matt

I'll throw this out there for anyone who wants to take it to heart. It is not directed at anyone in particular.

Get with a slug and stay there. Resist all the "new", "better", "faster", "improved" and "high tech" offerings. They come out consistently. Year after year, sucking up money from every guy who thinks it's gonna give him that little edge. Buy a fewboxes of a few mfgrs new stuff. Head to the range. Next thing ya know you're clicking on that scope. Unsure what's best ......

Stick with what you know works. I'll bet that once again this year the slug that put the most meat in the freezer was the same as it has been for years - the Remington Slugger.

Centaur 1

I haven't used slugs in many years, I moved out of New Jersey in 1989. I'm impresed with everyones claims of accuracy with rifled barrels and sabot slugs, these weren't an option when I hunted there. The one thing that bothered me was that most hunters don't bring their shotguns to the range to find out it's true capabilities. For example I have a plain barreled Mossberg 500 in 20 gauge. I masked off a thin line approximately 1/8 in to the right of center on the back of the receiver and painted it with flourescent green model paint. My gun shoots to the left and this corrects it, line the bead up with the line I painted will get the slug back on center. With birdshot I never knew that it shot 10 inches to the left at 40 yards. With this setup I can keep my slugs in a 6 inch group at 50 yards and I limit my shots to this range.
My "slug" gun is amazing when held to smoothbore standards. Does anyone remember the old Marlin Goose guns? Bolt action 12 gauge with a 36 inch barrel. I was given one as a kid. I cut the barrel to 20 inches, glass bedded the receiver, drilled and tapped the receiver, added a peep sight (visible with the scope mounted), machined annd mounted a front sight, refinished the stockand machined a custom scope mount that held the scope high and to the left in order to clear the bolt. This gun opened my eyes to the differences in ammunition. I can hold three inch groups at 100 yards using Wichester 1 ounce slugs and I would have no problem shooting out to 125 yards. Remington slugs won't even hit the target at 100 yards, I get a spread of about 3 feet at this distance. I'm told that this is due to different diameter slugs, the winchester are oversized and crush down to size in the forcing cone in front of the chamber and the remington slugs are undersized and they expand to fit the chamber. My hunting partner uses a gun with a modified choke and gets better groups with the remington slugs.
These old foster style slugs do impressive damage to deer. I killed a buck at 75 yards one time quartering towards me, the slug broke his left shoulder, traveled the length of the body and broke his right femur and lodged under the skin. The slug was almost an inch in diameter and it still weighed one ounce. It's hard to improve on that kind of performance.

Ron in SC

I shoot a 11-87 with a 24 inch hastings rifled barrel and it groups the Remington solid coppers great and the solid coppers punch a real big hole in a deers ribs. The only other slugs i have tried are the Remington Buckhammers they group good but not as tight as the solid coppers. The Buckhammers really kick hard.

teamster284

I wanted to kind of "update" my slugs so to speak. I searched and looked and figured the SST's were the best bet to see how they would shoot. I made a huge mistake and bought 8 boxes. I figured I would shoot 2 or maybe 3 to sight in. Let me tell you this...........[/align]I have a Mossberg 835 with a riffled barrel. I have been shooting my old trusty Winchester BRI's for years out of it and they are just fine. The SST's were complete junk out of this gun, and a buddy has a Remmington 870 and they didn't fare much better out of it. Out of the Mossberg I couldn't get them down enough at 50 yards to get on paper. I mean I was 2 ft. high at 50yrds. and I couldn't move my sight any further. (riffle sights)I could aim at the ground in front of target and hit paper and that was it. In my opinion these are just way too "hot" for that barrel or for that gun, so I am stuck with 7 boxes of ammo that is completely useless to me @ $14 a box. Just good for noise makers on the 4th of July I guess. They didn't fly much better out of the Remmington. way high. I'm not a rookie and know what I am doing and for the life of me I can not figure out why they shot like that. I have a hunting buddy who was on the SRT for Ohio Dept. of Corrections and was a sniper for them and he could dono better than me so I figure its the ammo. He said way too "hot" of a load also. I have emailed Hornady and let then know what I thought, didn't do much good , just got my point across to them I guess. I am going to go back to my BRI's why fix what isn't broke I guess. [/align]