Slug Selection

Crossbow Hunting

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DropTine
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Slug Selection

Post by DropTine »

I have a Remington 870 Super Mag with a B-Square scope mount and a 1x30 Red Dot on it. It has a stock 28" vent rib barrel but I bought a rifled choke tube for it. What would be the best slug to use for it, rifled slug or a sabot and what company.

Thanks,

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MADMAX2
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SLUGS?

Post by MADMAX2 »

I think if you already have rifling on your choke then go with unrifled slugs my 870 has the rifled barrel I use sabots or just stick with your trusty crossbow :lol:
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Post by Pydpiper »

If I was shooting a smooth bore and had the option of a rifled choke I would skip the choke, stick with a CB choke and use Challenger slugs, those things rock out of a smooth bore!
I wouldn't bother with Sabots from a rifled choke, a good sabot can get to just short of 2000 FPS by the time it hits the rifling, can't see it doing much good.
Those challengers work terrific, I had similar but not quite as good of results from the Brenneke.
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Allan
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Post by Allan »

Pydpiper

Where did you get those challenger slugs from?
tworr
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Post by tworr »

Rifled barrel: Sabot Slugs
Smooth barrel: Rifled Slugs/Buck shot

I was looking into this a while back but the cost of a rifled barrel for my 390 made me rethink the purchase and want to wait till I find a deal on a slug gun.

Sabots are recommended for rifled barrel to get maximum accuracy.
They can be shot in a smooth barrel, but it would be a waste of money and using rifled slugs in a rifled barrel could damage the barrel.

MadMax2 is right, a rifled choke can be used to increase the accuracy of the sabot in a smooth barrel.

The site I found showed the difference in accuracy between each slug and barrels, but I'm not sure they did a rifled slug/smooth barrel vs. a sabot/smooth barrel/rifled choke.

I will see if I can find it again.
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Post by Pydpiper »

Allan wrote:Pydpiper

Where did you get those challenger slugs from?
I get my Challengers from a mom/pop shop that is local to me, I use them in my "around the house" gun, they work just as good from my new Ithaca as they did from my 870 smooth bore. They are a fairly easy slug to find, are you having problems locating them?
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TPM
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Post by TPM »

My 2 cents worth. I've done a lot of slug shooting and experimenting over the years and I agree and disagree with some of the points here. First, Pydpiper is correct. Challengers are impressive... on paper. I did a fair bit of target shooting with Challengers at one point and was amazed at how accurate they could group out of a smooth bore. But after seeing some less than impressive performance in the field on actual deer I won't hunt with them again. Here's a picture I borrowed from Doemaster last year for a piece I wrote on slug shooting. (Hope ya don't mind me posting it here Kevin :) ) This slug was recovered from a deer. You could almost reload that sucker! :shock:
Image

I also did a test a few years back between a fully rifled slug barrel and a smooth bore with a rifled choke tube. The gun was an 870 Express. The fully rifled barrel was equipped with factory open sights. The smooth bore was a 22" turkey barrel with an extended rifled tube and Williams adjustable clamp-on sights. I was shooting off a solid rest at 100 yards using Federal Sabot slugs and the difference in accuracy was amost nil. I can't gaurentee rifled tubes will work well with all shotguns or all slugs but it sure worked well with my set-up.
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Post by Long Trang »

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Post by saxman »

I want to get a 20ga rifled slug barrel for my Encore.
I hear the 20's are great.
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rickyp
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Post by rickyp »

IF you have the b-square mount hat attachers whit the pins to the side of the receiver. you need to get rid of it. over time they will move and widen the holes and damage the receiver.
Looking to a hastings cantilever scope mount rifled barrel for you 870.

Or you can get a mossberg 830 with a slug barrel for about $300 and they have a receiver drilled and tapped for scope as well as the cantilever scope mount barrel and they shoot well

For slugs only your firearm can tell you what works best out of it what works great in mine will not work at all in yours. the best for rifled barrels and chokes are the sabots the rifles slugs are designed for totally smoothed bore barrels

I have a 20 ga barrel for my encore and I will tell you it is a sweeeeeettttt handling gun. I took 3 deer with mine using Remington copper solids. 2 where one shot kills and one took a second due to a poor shot but fell in it's track with the second shot.
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Post by bait pile willie »

my turkey gun came with a slug barrel,when I am up bear huntig in 2wks or so I am going to sight in rem.managed recoil copper solids most of my shots will be 75 yds or mostl less,will appreciate the 40o/o less recoil.
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Post by hetichunter »

rickyp wrote: Looking to a hastings cantilever scope mount rifled barrel for you 870.
That is the best set up going. :!: The improvement it makes somthin to see.

And if you put some nice optics on the cantilever scope mount and dial in your slug (sabots are the choice here) you got yourself one of the best weps going for slug only states. No matter what you do the 870 mag wont let ya down! Its the energizer bunny of the shotgun world. :D
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Post by RyanB »

My brother and I both show the Remington 870 Deer/Turkey combo 12gauges with the riffled slug barrel and have had great results with the Remington Core-Lokt Ultra Sabot's. I got my shotgun first and bought 2 boxes of every type of Sabot from Shooters Choice in Waterloo (winchester,remington and about 3 other manufatures) the winchesters I found to be the absolute worse with some even making elongated holes in the paper targets (sabot tumbling in the air I would guess).

The Core-Lokt's were the best and we could get groups with both our guns of 4" at 250 yards and were hitting inside 6" consistantly at 300 yards.

We both practice quite a bit before the season and put a good 5 or 6 boxes thru. My brother dropped a nice buck at 267 yards this past fall and made some masive destruction even at that distance. I nailed a great 9point in the shoulder running beside me at 10 yards and made quite the mess but he wasn't going anywhere. My father also dropped a smaller 6point with a challenger (hit ribs and lung) and was a complete pass thru and looked it didn't even mushroom at all. This all happened with 10 minutes on the last saturday in our season....great time and every slug did its job...just that the challenger's I thought were less than impressive in field use also. My dad will be getting the same 870 this year as we have and shooting the Core-Lokts.

Remington also just came out with a new Premier AccuTip
Bonded Sabot Slug and its looking pretty good so I am going to order in a few boxes to try. These slugs are also 58 caliber which is the largest tipped sabot on the market currently and I think they look promising but won't hold my breath untill I try some out.

Here is a pic of the Bucks we drops last November.
Image

RyanB
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Post by Rich »

I have had great success with the Winchester Partition Golds also, the Light Field EXP's flew very well for short range (75 yards). I'll have to give the Remingtons Ryan mentions a try.

Rich
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