Rifled shotgun suggestions?
 

I have always hunted deer using a rifle but one of the places I want to hunt next year is shotgun only. I just wanted to get some opinions on what rifled shotguns that I should look at from those of you that hunt deer with a shotgun. What make/model do you like best and why? Also what scope do you recommend for a shotty?
Thanks,
Tuck

depends on what you want to spend.... No need for a 12ga., with todays high tech 20ga. sabot slugs it's all you need. You can get a dedicated slug gun like the Savage 220f which I have & love, also consider a single shot H&R Deluxe I also have it and its great !!!! If you want a pump and great deal they have at Dicks Sporting Goods is the Mossberg 500 combo it comes with two barrels one field and one rifle/cantilever barrel. Get yourself a decent scope and test out various sabot slugs to see which ones work best in your new shotgun !!!!

How thick an area is it where you hunt with a shotgun? I live in a shotgun area and do hunt around home sometimes. If your shots are fairly close, maybe you only need a smooth bore. Lead slugs are a lot cheaper to practice with and shoot during deer season. I dropped a doe Friday about 80 yards out, which is really pushing it for my shotgun. It hit about where I aimed, but I know it starts to open up fast after about 70 yards. I have an old (From the 30's) H&R single shot. The tubes on the old shotguns are really thick and do not flex as much and they are thick enough to silver solder a scope base right on the top of the tube. I have a cheap Leapers 4x rifle scope on it and have had no problems with it even though the recoil is pretty bad on a short, light, 12 gauge. I really put a lot of Federal slugs through it over the years and the scope stayed good. If you do go smooth bore look for one with a thick walled barrel and you should be O.K. Up to you, just telling you some options.

Savage 220f is an awesome slug gun. You'll find yourself using it more than you think. Since is started using it in the thicker brushier areas which I originally bought it for, I have used it all over. Paired with the right sabots it groups quite well at 250 yards.

an let me add it shoulders like a rifle !!!

it depends on the type of cover you hunt ,,I have a scoped T.C Encore w/ a rifled slug barrel that will shoot 6 in. groops at 150 yds.But I wouldn't dare carry it in the thick stuff I hunt in.
I'll stick with my Ithaca Deerslayer with open sights.

There are quite a few ways to answer your particular question. The best answer depends on how you plan to use it, your budget, and if you have a shotgun you can make work. If you plan on shooting over 100 yards you're going to need to step up to something rifled and good sabot slugs. If you're not going over 100 the lead foster slugs will do just fine. I have a Remington 870 as a backup that uses the lead slugs quite well. It has a rifled choke tube screwed in the end of a smooth bore barrel and it shoots quite nice out to 100. I killed a deer at 117 once but that's really pushing the limit. And hitting them with the lead slugs is simply devastating. I'm picking up a brand new H&R 20 Gauge with thumbhole stock tonight. I plan on taking a doe during the IL doe only season in January with the new gun. A trusted friend sights in guns for people and has reported consistent 200 yard success with the 20 gauge H&R with Remington Accu-Tip slugs.

I really had not thought about a 20 gauge for deer hunting but after reading a lot of reviews on the Savage 220 it sounds pretty promising. That may be the route that I end up going. I am pretty sure that I want to go the rifled barrel route to have the extra distance if needed. I am not sure of the layout of the woods yet where I will be hunting as I have not been there yet, so I am not sure if it is brushy or if there will be more open shots. I also like that the 220 appears to feel more like a rifle as that is what I prefer to deer hunt with. I have a few shotguns that I could probably pick up a rifled barrel for (Benelli SBEII and a Browning Silver) but I think I would rather just add another gun to the collection. Can't ever have to many...right? Thanks for all the suggestions so far.
Tuck

mossberg 500a 12 gauge i have had it for a couple years and my dad has hd one for like 25 years i love it and you can shoot sabots or rifled slugs in it

The savage 220 gets my vote too, but the high performance sabots are expensive. Not that you'll shoot all that many.

Another cheaper option os to find a used Marlin 512 or Mossberg 695. These are both bolt guns. My 512 shoots really well with a couple sabot brands. It seems to like the velocity under 1700 fps though.

I love my Benelli with Remington Accu tip Sabots. Very accurate.

Savage 220 20ga

Browning Abolt 12ga

Leupold 3-9x Ultimate Slam,
reticle with bullet drops out to 300yds...250,200,150,100,50...

Savage 220 is an INCREDIBLE firearm!! As so are most of the other bolt action shotguns in my own experience. I would rate the Marlin 512 and browning around the same coming in a close second and the Mossberg 695 coming in very close third to those. Like I said, " in my own experiences you can't go wrong with them. Also, my Remington 870 ( diffusion choke ), Mossberg 500 ( rifled barrel ), Ithaca 37 ( rifled barrel ) are all very accurate to about 125 yards. I can get 2.5-3 inch groups with the pump guns that have rifled barrels or diffusion chokes. However I can pull clover leaf patterns at 125 yards out of my Marlin 512 using partition golds. The only downfall out of this, is the expense of shooting sabots. I used to shoot them more often when I was paying $7-11 per box of 5. Now I see prices of $13-21 per box. There is no way that I will pay $4 per round for a shotgun slug. So for now, I have opted to shoot foster style slugs out of my Remington 870 or Mossberg 500. I am getting about 4" groups at 60 yards and anything after 80 yards opens up to about 11" or more. For me it sucks, but I just have to keep my shots 75 yds. or less. If I want to hunt longer distance I try to hunt Northern tier NY and use my 30-30 for woods or 30-06 for fields. I have heard of a lot of hunters going out as far as 250 yds with their rifled slug guns. The farthest I went with a slug gun was at the range and was 200 yds. it was getting about 4.5-5.5 inch groups consistently but they where also consistently dropping about 6 inches at 200 yds. I don't know how much the drop would be or how much energy would be left for the partition gold at 250 yds. but I personally opted for 200 yd. max shots with my 512 loaded with the partition golds. 200 yards is a long way for any slug gun. Either way.....if you can afford to shoot with a rifled shotgun and feed it the good sabots....and find the sabot it prefers ( without going broke ) then you have made a great choice for hunting and God bless ya!

mossberg 695 is very nice my dad has that and my bro has the marlin 512

I hunt whitetail in Iowa - a shotgun only state. My gun is a 12ga Remington 1100 Wingmaster with a bead site. Typically I shoot 2-3/4" rifled slugs (Winchester SuperX.) Basically it's a pheasant gun; not exactly ideal for whitetail. It was handed down from my grandfather and I've hunted with it 28 years. I've been considering and researching a new gun for at least the last 10 years, but I normally hit what I aim at: up to 80 yards consitently and when I miss it probably isn't the gun's fault. Four years ago I dropped a real nice 8-point doe (yes, an antlered doe!) at 120 yards with one shot. This year I hit a buck at 150 yards, but shot 7 times. So I have kept with my old gun figuring if it isn't broke, don't fix it.

It's time for a new gun.
My gun has always hated cold weather, not ejecting the shells correctly. This year was extremely bad. We had freezing rain and sleet the first day. The second day was was around 10 degrees and my gun wouldn't eject a single shell by itself. By the end of the day I had to warm the gun in the truck to get the shells out of the gun at all! It's time for a new gun. So here's what I've learned about shotguns for deer over the last 28 years of hunting and 10 years of reseach.

12 ga vs. 20 ga.
I've always prefered a 12 Gauge. We hunt the South side of a river that runs along the IA/MN border. We group hunt with anywhere from 16 to 22 hunters (legal in Iowa) - meaning we have walkers who make their way through the woods and push deer to standers on the the other side. Both walkers and standers are often shooting at running deer and "knock-down power" becomes important. In some instances, if a wounded deer makes it across the river we have no good way of getting to it and the deer could be safely in Minnesota where we can not hunt. We had 9 kids between 13 and 16 years old who hunted this year, and most of them shoot 20 gauges. 8 of the 9 kids shot at least one deer, however we never got a wounded 10 point buck who made his way across the river. A 13 year-old hunter shot the deer with his 20 ga. The deer dropped and stayed down for almost a minute before getting back up and making it's way across the river. If it had been shot with a 12 ga, it might have stayed down... or at least wounded the deer enough to let us get a second shot.

Scopes
I had a side-mounted scope on my gun for 3 or 4 years, but removed it about 10 years ago. Almost everyone I know (including me) who has a scope on their shotgun has split their nose open at least once. In the excitement of moment they either didn't get their gun shouldered correctly, were shooting at an akward angle, or simply didn't have enough eye relief. Eye relief is something important to consider when looking at a scope for your shotgun!

I will probably get a scope on my new gun. I'm looking at an inexpensive red-dot scope. They are pretty short and have a lot of eye relief. A 2X is about all you need and allows you to pick up a moving target easily. I will probably get a gun with a cantileved mount for the scope - though it raises the line of sight by an inch or more.

Barrels
I certainly want a rifled barrel. From what I've read; the most important thing is to shoot several brands of shells through your gun to find out which bullets perform the best. (one Remington 870 might shoot a tight pattern with a particular brand, and the exact same gun might shoot a different brand of shells better.) This means $$$ ...at $15 to $20 for a 5-pack of sabots, I realize that I will likely spend more than $100 on bullets just to find out which brand shoot the most accurately through my gun!

I also like a shorter barrel. Again, because I am often shooting at moving deer, a shorter barrel is easier to swing into place if you are in thick cover or even just standing behind a tree. It's also easier to carry if you are the one walking through the woods .

Bullets
I haven't decided whether or not to stay with 2-3/4" rounds or move up to a 3" magnum. One thing I've read is that higher velocity shells require a tighter twist in your barrel rifling: slugs in the 1200 to 1500 fps range work best from a slower twist rate such as 1 in 34 inches. Faster 1900 to 2000 fps slugs perform better through a 1-in-30 barrel. My plan is to test ammunition with a velocity that matches whatever barrel I end up with, so that will probably determine whether I shoot 2-3/4" shells or something longer. As for the brand - I'll just have to do some testing.

Conclusion
Right now I'm looking at a used Remmington 870 (12 ga) with a new 20" hastings rifled barrel with a cantelievered mount for a red-dot scope.

I shoot a Remington 870 express mag with a Simmons pro diamond 4 power scope. Shooting lightfield sabots I can shoot a 4" group at 100 yards max range is about 150. Good gun and has killed alot of deer. Plus throw a differed barrel on it and it also a turkey gun, bird gun and waterfowl gun. My dad shoots a h&r slug hunter with the bull barrel shooting lightfields with a nikon 3x9x40 scope. He shoots them touching at 100, 4" at 150 and about 6" at 200. Thing weighs as much as a small cannon (because it is) but man is it a tack driver! Great gun and affordable. Single shot action turns some people off but I like it. Only takes one to put a deer down.