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?

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

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.

RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!
 

Sounds more like a scope/mount problem rather than a shell problem.

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.

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.

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..

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!!!

RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!
 

Correction: 2" high at 50 yds on the SST's.

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.

RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!
 

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.

RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!
 

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.

RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!
 

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.

RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!
 

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!

RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!
 

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.

RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!
 

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?

RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!
 

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.

RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!
 

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.

RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!
 

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.

RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!
 

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]

RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!
 

Teamster284-

seems like we share a similar fate of the SST upgrade. I too purchased several boxes thinking the streamlined aerodynamic shape and extra velocity would make my slug gun a true 150yd deer killer. Not so. I will go back to either Winchester, Federal or Remington after I shoot 2 boxes of each and finalize the data. The winner becomes the slug of choice.
I'm sure Hornady does not want to acknowledge the bad or negative criticism of their product. The quality control of those slugs must vary in the testing room. I'm curious as to the barrel/shotgun combo they're using or if its just a typical barrel only test fire as is the rifle data in reloading. I wish we both could get our money back!
The Remington ultra cor-lokt bonded and Winchester gold partitions shoot very well out of my 20ga H&R slug gun.
I may try these two for the 12ga and see how they do.
Seems like the old Rem and Win standbys still end up as the choice of hunters!

RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!
 

The SST's don't do very well out of either of my slug guns (Benelli Nova and 870, both rifled cantilever 12ga). I stick with the Federal Barnes Expanders.
That said, they shoot well from my son's 870 rifled 20ga. Go figure.
I also use the Barnes Expanders in my ML. Dropped an 8 point about 6 hours ago. Broadside, through the heart. He literally just laid down in the very spot he stood where I shot him.

RE: Need help with 12 ga slugs!
 

I have a remington 870 with a fully rifled barrel. I have had good luck with Federal premium sabot slugs. They are harder and harder to find because of the newer slugs like you describe. I have a few copper solids to try. I'd love to find the ones I shoot again. They were much cheaper than the 16 dollar a box copper solids. Seems like they were 8 bucks a box instead, maybe less. Like I said its been a while since I've bought them. I have 2 left. So next year I have to find a new slug or a place to get the ones I like.