Seven or eight years ago my best friend's dad passed away. He always loved hunting/shooting and had a decent collection of guns. Nothing high end, but Remington, Ruger, Winchester, Ithaca, Mossberg, etc. Used, but well taken care of. For Christmas this year, they (my friend and his mom) gave me a Winchester 1200 shotgun from that collection of guns.
This particular model came w/2 barrels (a smooth bore slug barrel w/rifle sights and a 30 inch full choke barrel). I figured I'd use the gun for turkey hunting and maybe as a back up deer gun (maybe).
After doing some research on foster slugs (it's been years since I shot any) I decided to try some Winchester Winlite rifled slugs. The velocity is listed as 1200 fps and they generate 1400 ft lbs of energy @ the muzzle. Enough to kill a deer, but not enough to beat you silly like most foster slugs will.
After a couple of trips to the range, I must say I'm pleasantly surprised with the accuracy! I started out @ 25 yards to see where the gun was shooting. One hole groups and an adjustment to the open sights later and I was shooting @ clay targets @ 50 yards. To my amazement, I hit the clays every single time! Hell, I was on to something here! I moved on out to 75 yards and again, hit the clay targets every time!
Now these reduced recoil loads start dropping energy pretty quickly much past 75 yards and I figured 100 yards w/open sights would be pushing my luck and I was right. The slugs were dropping well under the clays @ that range and the energy is dropping as well.
But 75 yards w/open sights, shooting .60 cent per round slugs and hitting clays everytime was pretty impressive to me. Definetly minute of deer.
And while the loads and the gun won't replace my primary deer gun, it was fun to see how well the new foster loads would shoot from my old school gun and I will definetly hunt next season with it.
The way I see it is most deer are killed @ less than 75 yards anyway, it's accurate and besides....it'll be like going hunting with my friend's dad one more time.
Jim
