What have you found is your maximum effective range for 12 or 16 gauge slugs out of a smooth bore gun? What slugs were you using?
thanks
Doug
Doug, cannot say anything about 16's. Have never messed with them, however, I've been playing with smoothbore slug guns in 12 & 20 gauge since the mid 60's(as I'm sure you've read in past posts by me).
We use smoothbore slug guns and foster slugs almost exculsively anymore. Just don't see the need to pick up a rifled barrel slug for ranges inside of 125 yards, and we're hard pressed to get a shot at 125 yards here, half that distance or less tends to be the norm here.
I don't find it relatively difficult to get a smoothbore slug gun to shoot accurately out to 125 yards. Matter of fact, if I can't get one to shoot accurately out to that range(and that hasn't happened yet), I'd get rid of the gun.
Winchester foster slugs are my slug of choice, both in 12 and 20 gauge. They are the least fussy and most accurate in the greater majority of smoothbore slug guns(in my experience), and if a smoothbore slug gun came into my ownership that wouldn't shoot them accurately, I'd get rid of that gun too.
Smoothbore accuracy really doesn't require a whole lot of tweaking in my opinion. Everytime I hear glowing statements from people that accuacy with a smooth bore slug gun is 50 yards maximum, I always chuckle to myself, knowing that the person who made the statement has literally no experience shooting slugs in a smoothbore slug barrel, but rather, took a fowling piece with just a front bead and pointed it at a target and couldn't hit it(if he even did that). Well, you wouldn't use just a front bead with a rifle, or a rifled slug gun that shoots a single projectile, so why is it supposed to work with a smoothbore slug gun shooting a single projectile?
The 2 keys I've found for smoothbore repeatable accuracy, is a barrel that fits snugly into the receiver giving you a tight fit with no wobble, and a RIGIDLY mounted scope. Obviously, smoothbore slug barrels aren't made with cantilevers, so the scope needs to be mounted rigidly to the receiver of the gun, either via drilling & tapping the receiver, having a receiver thats drilled and tapped from the factory, or the proper saddle/side mount(of which very few are any good).
The kids and I have found on the average run of the mill 12 gauge smoothbore slug gun, if it is sighted in 2 inches high with 2 3/4 inch Winchester foster slugs at 50 yards, it will be about an inch high at 75 yards and dead on at 100 yards, a few inches low at 125 yards.
The 20 gauges with the same Winchester 2 3/4 inch slug sighted in 2 inches high at 50 yards are dead on at 75 yards and about an inch low at 100 yards. So with either the 12 or 20, you can simply hold dead on from zero to 100 yards if you aim for the lungs, hold a little high with the 12 at 125 yards, and at the top of the deers back with the 20.
Price difference in a box of foster slugs versus sabots allows one to practice regularly at these ranges without having to go for a second mortgage on your home if you had to buy that quantity of saboted slugs. And practice is what gives you the confidence to make the shot and get your deer.
Smoothbore accuracy doesn't require a newer weapon either. Here is the gun that started it all for me, a vintage 1963 Ithaca 37 12 gauge featherweight that I purchased a smoothbore slug barrel for a year after I bought the gun. Set up with a Weaver Converta Mount(which isn't made for an Ithaca 37 anymore) and a Bushnell Banner 1.5X4.5 variable scope, this gun is now on it's second generation owner, being passed down to my son. Been killing deer efficiently all these years with foster slugs and the smoothbore slug barrel. Here's a deer he shot yesterday with it, fairly close, at 30-35 yards, but the gun also has the distinction of making the longest kill of any of our smoothbore slug guns. 2 years ago son took a doe at 128 LASERED yards with it, in front of two witnesses, across an open field, one shot, bang flop. Not bad for a gun thats been knocking around since 1963.
