Long time hunter, first time SLUG hunter, ammo help...
 

A lot of the parks in my area held lottery hunts last season for a few days in the middle of winter. I'm a long time bow and blackpowder hunter but these hunts are for shotgun only, no buckshot, just slugs. Well after looking at the numbers last year, getting drawn for a few of these should be easy and success rate was high so I went and got a 12ga barrell for my Encore ProHunter.
Here's the question, what round does everyone suggest? I'm thinking my maximum distance would be 75yd but most under that so I don't need those ones with all the 150+yd power. I also will admit I have NO PROBLEM sacraficing some recoil and power to be more accurate by not flinching. I can take a kick for sure, but I don't need max power since I figured a slug hitting a deer in the vitals under 75yds is going down no matter how fast its moving.
Any ideas or suggestions? Thanks!

Look at the Remington Accu-Tips, Lightfield EXPs, Hornady SSTs, all in the 2-3/4" size...Also keep in mind shotguns are a Pain in the A**, cause you may have to go thru many brands and sizes to see what works best for you

They're somewhat expensive but I absolutely love my Lightfields.
http://www.lightfield-ammo.com/

I would check out Federal Barnes 1oz expander. 1450 fps, it hits hard.
Solid 100 yd groups.

bb

Unless you get lucky with your gun/barrel, this is absolutely correct. I think the SSTs are the most universally accurate, but I have heard of people complaining of their performance on deer. I'll take a better-performing bullet any day over one that shoots cloverleaf groups. With that said, after trying many brands of slugs, I found that my gun grouped the Remington Accutips reasonably well. I have fired one shot at a deer with these and I have one kill. The buck went down immediately and didn't even budge.

Now, I find it odd that your lottery hunt is shotgun only and that they do not allow muzzleloaders. Where I hunt, I have never seen shotgun only with no muzzys allowed, but I have seen it the other way around. If I were you, I'd call up the dept heading the lottery hunts and verify that you cannot use your muzzleloader before messing with buying a variety of slugs to test. It will save you a ton of $$ on ammo, and you may be able to return that (hopefully unused) Encore barrel.

Thanks for all the help guys, still doing my research with reviews etc but these gave me a great start.

Yeah I know, the no muzzleloader thing I thought was bizzare. Its weird too because during our regular hunting season (Maryland), you can muzzleload hunt during the whole shotgun season but not the other way around. I called the Parks dept last season to see if I could get in with my muzzleloader and they denied me. When i asked why, they said the inline muzzleloader bullets travel too far compared to the slugs and since the parks border "population" its slug only. I don't know if they were just feeding me BS or what but yeah, shotgun only. Maryland stinks as far as regulations/laws go.

I could not tell if you bought a smooth bore or rifled 12 ga. barrel. If you bought a smooth bore, only options will be rifled slugs. These indeed tend to be very iffy as far as grouping, and will lose energy rapidly as it passes through the air. Arc is relatively severe. The reason being is that the rifled slug is a heavy, lousy flier and does not begin to stablilize (spin) until after it leaves the barrel and may be slightly tilted by the time it does .... and the spin is a result of it cutting its way through the air. Energy that is used up spinning the bullet would other wise be conserved in the retention of forward velocity. (It is a physics thing).

If however you bought a rifled barrel, then you indeed have a 125 +/- set-up. The
2 3/4" or 3" shells are usually in a sabot (plastic sleeve). The lands of the rifled barrel + the friction between the sabot and slug, start the bullet spinning before it leaves the muzzle. Much like a standard center fire rifle. In general this type of set up is much more accurate than a smooth bore/rifled slug set-up.

It is a mistake to use sabot slugs in a smooth bore. These will leave the muzzle not spinning, tending to wobble or tumble wildly, resulting in an unpredictable down range point of impact.

Long time ago, I used a smooth bore, 12 ga. pump with rifled slugs as a deer recovery weapon. I never found any ammo capable of decent groups and would not have taken a shot past 75 or so yards.

On the otherhand, one of my regular hunting buddy's, Bill J., uses a 3" chambered, rifled barrel 12 ga. Mod. 870 and Remington brand sabot ammo (which exactly I do not recall) exclusively. Has for eyars. Though he could use center fire, he prefers this set up. Over the past 15 or so years, he has killed hump-teen deer ... probably 120 .... and has never missed as far as I know, and I have never known of one going farther than 40-50 yards. He has killed several from a shooting house set on one end of his favorite food plot, to the far end about 135 yards away.

That is beyond ridiculous. Do they not know that a 300gr Hornady SST leaves the muzzle at 2000 fps? Scroll down this page for the ballistics on a 290gr muzzleloading bullet. For all powders at their top load it is travelling less than 2000 fps.

http://www.hpmuzzleloading.com/LoadsBallistics.html

Maryland just pissed me off for ya! And they piss me off anyway b/c they won't recognize a VA concealed carry permit, so for the whopping 13 miles I have to travel thru MD on the way to PA, I have to stow my pistol according to the federal transporting of firearms regulations (park in WV, exit vehicle, unload gun, put in case, lock case, stow in trunk).

I've had very good luck with the Remington Accu-Tips in regards to accuracy and knockdown power.

Before

After, pulled from doe last year.

I KNOW! No concealed carry, at all! I am 5 miles from the PA border who has concealed carry, hell I believe all of the bordering states have it. It sucks. Not only that, just last month they were the first state to pass a bill to shoot birth control into deer in some parks instead of bowhunting. Cost is $1000 a deer and is only effective for one year. A HUGE waste of tax money! Hunters would PAY to hunt there and they are screwing with this. I'm 31 and have my own business here so I am stuck or else I'd be gone so fast. I thought I escaped this bull when I moved from NJ. I'm hoping to cash out and move to a hunter/gun friendly state by the time I'm 50. Until then, Im stuck with these morons that run the state

I have great luck with the Brenneke KO Sabot slugs. They make a KO and a KO Sabot, so be sure to get the sabot if you try them. They are priced in the middle of the general range, last I paid was $12 a box.