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Need help with 12 ga slugs!

Old 12-23-2007, 04:48 PM
  #1  
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Default Need help with 12 ga slugs!

Guys,

Last year I tried the Hornady SST's in my slug gun. 12ga, 2 3/4". They shot well when I sighted them in which was a few shots at the range. Sighted for 2" high at 50 yds.
In the Jersey zone I was hunting allowed for two does and one buck to be taken on opening day. Early in the A.M. I had a group of does come in at about 65-70 yds. There were 9 of them on a snow covered ground(easy to see). I leaned on my tree from my stand and fired the first shot. No reaction from the does. I re-set myself and fired at the same doe again. She dropped. The does started trooting around and I settled the cross hairs again and fired. Nothing!! Now they boogie off and the moments is over. About an hour later, a 4 ptr comes along the same trail. He never stopped even when I whistled. So I swung with him, stayed on the front of his chest and squeezed off. He drops.
I climb down and walk over. The does is hit midships and spined. Well off my point of aim( shoulder). I gut her and then move on to the buck. He's hit midships and spined. I gut him.
Later that day, I put on a small drive for my two friends and as I'm walking, I see several does coming toward me.
I squat down in a blowdown and settle my slug gun on a hefty dead branch, very solid rest. I let the does come within about 40 yds. I've got the mature does in my crosshairs. She's slightly quartered toward me. I'm centered on the point of the shoulder. I squeeze one off and she buckles. I watch her in my scope as she runs off and to my sad amazement, I see she's gut hit and the back leg is broken and dragging. These SST's were not making my day!
We followed up on the doe and my buddy dropped her.
When I researched the web, some guys complained of "flyers" with the SST's when shooting at the range. Is this for real??? When I shot yesterday, some went right on at 50 yds, others were 6-8" off. Are these slugs that poorly regulated by quality control or is my Hastings slug barrel fed up with them?
Today I spent $130.00 on slugs. Two boxes of Winchester Partition Golds, two boxes of Federal Barnes Expanders and two boxes of Remington Cor-Lokt Ultra Bonded Sabot slugs. I'll go back to the range and see which of these others will fly like they should.
Do any of you have any of the same issues with SST's if you shot them or is this a fluke incident?
358WINMAN is offline  
Old 12-23-2007, 05:14 PM
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Join Date: Apr 2007
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Default RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!

I'm not sure if you were the one on this forum or another forum that asked about slugs and slug guns and what reccomendations people had for slugs in their guns and the performance that they should accept as normal for a slug gun 0r those slugs.

Here is my opinion.

You can get just as good of performance out of regular over the counter out of the box Remington Punkin Balls in 2 3/4 inch as you can get out of them high priced SST's that you are now shooting.

An average of 4 inches in any direction from center of a 1 inch bulls eye at 50 yards is probably acceptable in your situation.

Depending on how many shots you took out of your shotgun to try to sight it in before the season started - will tell the rest of the story.

Do you really want to know what you did wrong?

I will tell you!

First off - you only sighted in your gun for 50 yards and then you expected it to shoot 75 yards. You thought that you knew what it would do at 50 yards, but never even bothered to find out what it would do at 75, 100, 125 , 150 yards.

The shots you missed, you shot clear over the deer's back. The shots you made- you shot high.

You call your gun a slug gun, but you never mentioned what make model of shotgun you have, nor the type of scope or scope mounts.

Then you sight your gun in at a shooting range and then you shoot off hard surfaces. That will change your point of aim. Not to mention BUCK FEVER.
You probably were yanking the trigger and it made the gun shoot that much higher.

You mentioned shooting only a couple of shots, which tells me that you work all during the year and then the one day out of the year when you decide to hunt - you think you are Daniel Boone with old Betsy.

You need to spend hours and weeks and months and years of time out in the woods before you make enough mistakes - to learn not to make them mistakes before you can call yourself a real hunter.

I have hunted small game for more than 30 years, and I miss more than I hit. Then when deer season comes around, I use the same type action rifle / shotgun - that way I get used to pushing in the button for the safety and working the action and I can shoot one just as good as the other one.

Use the ammo that you bought for target practice - every weekend if necessary until you get good enough that you can hit aPepsi 12 ounce can 12 out of 12 times. Then when you go hunting deer with Old Betsy - you will hit what you are aiming at. Forget about what the gun did on the sand bags and concentrate on what it does in the field under real life conditions.

Also - you might want to go out and buy a good quality shooting sticks - I useStoney Point Steady Stix, and they will make a good shot out of a fair shot 9 times out of 10. Forget about using a tree branch and droping to one knee as long as you can use the sticks. Practice with the sticks and tell me what comes of it.

The other thing is to get rid of them slugs and buy regular over the counter slugs and practice as much as you can.

http://www.cabelas.com/spodw-1/0005830.shtml

http://www.cabelas.com/spodw-1/0016694.shtml
The Rifleman is offline  
Old 12-23-2007, 06:37 PM
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Default RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!

A little hard on him Rifleman when he was asking for help.[/b]
358 I use the partition Gold Winchesters with great results out of my Ithica 37 deer slayer with a Leopold 1-4x shotgun scope. I too sight in 2" high at 50 yds and am usually right on at 100. I like the premium shells for the 1900 feet per second velocity and feel it helps due to flatter shooting and harder hitting loads. I haven't found them to fly and the load is a good one. Rifleman if I had to settle for a 4" group at 50 yardsI would quit hunting. 358 If I were to try something else I would go with the Federal Barnes Expanders. I use Barnes Expander bullets in my 50 cal ML and they really put a hurt on the deer and are very accurate. This year in my 06 I switched from Federal Vital Shok Nosler Partition 180 gr bullets to the Federal Vital Shok 180 Barnes TSX. My groups at 100 were smaller out of my Ruger 77 UL and I feel the bullet was devastating on the elk and 8 point I killed with that load this year. Both dropped like a stone. It appears Barnes has a great bullet and the slug loads might be great too. Let us know how the different shells do for you. Part of what is good with this site is to learn from each other not criticize. Thanks for your post 358.
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Old 12-23-2007, 06:45 PM
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Default RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!

Sounds more like a scope/mount problem rather than a shell problem.
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Old 12-23-2007, 09:44 PM
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Default RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!

I shot the SST's and grouped very well with them, 2 1/2- 3 inch groups at 125 yards. The only problem was most of my shots where we actually hunted were between 50-75 yards and my SSTs were about 4-5 inches high, while the remington sluggers my friend let me use were dead on at 50 and about an inch high at 75 so i used the sluggers. I've also heard of the SST's. going right through deer at close ranges because they don't have time to expand. I wouldn't blame the shells until you have done some hardcore shooting with them. If they are hitting when you are sighting them in but not when you shoot them in the field its not the shell.
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Old 12-23-2007, 11:08 PM
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Default RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!

Theory tells me that from the moment that the slug leaves the barrel it is dropping towards the ground - because of gravity.

For the gun to be dead on at 50 and 1 inch high at 100 also tells me that you have issues between the scope, scope mounts and the parrelism between the scope / scope mounts and the barrel.

He still didn't say what kind of gun he used or the gauge.

If it is a 12 ga, I would switch to a 20 gauge because the weight of the slug / compared to the amount of powder charge in the shell is better than in the 12 ga.

AS for Sabot slugs, sometimes they might be as good as a regular old pumpkin ball and sometimes they are not worth a hoot. All that I am saying is that you cannot make a rifle out of a shotgun.

I thought about it all day and came to the conclusion that he would be better off with a centerline muzzle loader rifle if the season permitted it instead of the shotgun. Some areas of the country allows both - due to the fact that the bullet in a 54 cal muzzle loader is big and doesn't travel even halfas fast as a centerfire rifle.

I wasn't trying to be hard on him, I just wanted him to realize that you don't always have to go out and buy nothing but the best to try to make up for inexperience. Experience is the best teacher and practice makes perfect.
The Rifleman is offline  
Old 12-24-2007, 12:40 PM
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Default RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!

them slugs are nothing but junk. go with the federal barnes expander. you will not be upset with them..
ken the kid is offline  
Old 12-24-2007, 02:50 PM
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Default RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!

Guys,
Thanks for the feedback from all of you. I have learned many years ago to accept criticism whether I like it or not!
To the Rifleman: The gun is a 12ga Remington 870 Wingmaster with a 24" Hastings rifled slug barrel. The scope was a Tasco 3-9 I put on years ago. This combo has shot super groups out to 100 yds religeously. My last batch of slugs were the Lightfield Hybrids 2 3/4" slugs. These were deadly accurate out to 100. I could put 3 slugs in a pack og cigarettes at 100 yds all day. The only problem was that the Lightfields kept breaking apart when hitting bone. Too many times I had to track a deer after a good shot only to need a followup shot. After the butchering/autposy process, I recovered my slugs- they were in several pieces! The breakup of the lead in my opinion led to the failure of consistant penetration and exiting. So, I made a switch to SST's based on recomendations from shooting aquaintances. They shot well and were sighted in for 2" high at 100yds. They shot well at 100yds but an occassional flyer would present itself. I thought it might be me, so I left it alone. Not so anymore. I even swicthed the scope last night to a new Nikon 3x9x40 to ensure that the reticle and internals are fresh and reliable.
Now, as soon as time allows( this coming weekend), I will test the new slugs and post the results for those of you who offered your slug recipes.
As for my yearly shooting Rifleman, I've spent more time at the range and reloading bench than many, many other hunters. I qualified as distinguished expert and shot counter sniper for two years. I feel that I'm qualified to judge my shooting skills as above average and was only asking for SST slug occurances from fellow hunter/shooters to see if they too had similar experiences.
I appreciate your input and wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year as to all of you other visitors here on HN.
Thanks all for your advice on the slugs!!!
358WINMAN is offline  
Old 12-24-2007, 02:52 PM
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Default RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!

Correction: 2" high at 50 yds on the SST's.
358WINMAN is offline  
Old 12-25-2007, 06:18 AM
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Default RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!

Thanks for posting this 358! I also used the SSTs in my 12 gauge Remington 1100 with a rifled barrel. I had 5 shells in the gun opening morning when a couple of does came through. Got one of them to stop at 50 yards or so in one of my shooting lanes. 5 shots later I had a midship hit, a broken front leg, and 3 clean misses. The midship hit was the first shot fired andslowed the doe down to a walk so I wasn't slinging lead at a running deer. When the gun was empty I reloaded with Remington sabots, first shot was dead on and brought the deer down. Needless to say my confidence in my shooting ability took a huge blow.
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