Best slug for DEEP penetration

Brenneke's

Lightfields or hornaday sst.

Understand for me, I want the versatility of a smooth bore barrel to allow me to shoot slugs, buckshot, pellet loads.
I am fine and dandy with the regular old lead slug out of a 12 ga, or 20ga. Then again I have experience in using 28 ga slugs and .410 as well.

Based on :
Shooting dirt, Vehicle windshields, back glass, through doors...
Buildings and building materials ...
Bullet resistant glass, brick, steel plates and other things I wanted to shoot - as I used such things in building cover to get behind in case I /we needed to. Add, zones of fire if you will for backstops.

Critters, humans being shot, and being in the OR whether to save a patients life , or do organ harvests.

Plain old factory lead slugs are fine by me - I do not do reduced recoil slugs or buckshot. I find what a gun likes, and use that loading in that gun.
Brenneke, no doubt, for ME are more accurate, and punch deeper.

FWIW Dept. I only use 2 3/4" slugs - I have no need for anything bigger, for any loading. I don't even own a shotgun that will shoot anything longer - not needed.

http://www.dnrws.com/rottweil.html

JeremyIA wrote:

I'm getting ready to go on a boar hunt. I've seen pics of boars from this area and they look like tough dudes. I'm taking a Marlin Guide Gun (.45-70) and will be shooting Buffalo Bore bullets. I'm also taking an Ithaca Deerslayer and am trying to figure out what slugs to buy. Someone makes an all-copper slug and I was thinking that this might be the way to go. Any opinions?

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The best advise that I can give is to try several different brands to see which slug shoots best from YOUR scattergun.

With that said, and knowing that this is the shotgun section of the forum, I took a 210 lb. (dressed weight) boar in Tennessee with a DW .44 Magnum w/4" barrel at seven feet (yes, 7 feet!!!).
One shot, into his neck. The 240 gr. JHP handload lodged in it's off-side jaw.
The 'on the hoof' weight was 265 lbs. The boar dropped like he'd been hit by a freight train!

I will suggest going with a slug that is accurate in your scattergun, then shot placement is what will anchor your boar.

Thanks for reading. . . . .

I will suggest going with a slug that is accurate in your scattergun, then shot placement is what will anchor your boar.

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Agree.

I wish more folks would simply use a pattern board for groups/ pattern density- and to find POA/POI . Then shoot these for reliable feeding and extraction in their guns.

Gun gotta run.

I've lucked out in every shotgun I've got. The BEST accuracy I get is with Remington Sluggers - you know, the one's that go for $2 a box when they are not on sale.
Funny thing is that when you can afford to shoot a lot, you tend to get better with what you're shooting.

If you test the Brenneke slugs and they are accurate in your gun, go with the Brennekes. The Brennekes are cast of a harder alloy than the conventional Foster-type slugs (Remington Slugger, etc), and will provide deeper penetration.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

I hunted Russian Blue Boar in Japan for four years and took several with 000 Buck. In Japan you can not get a license to own a rifle unless you have held a shotgun license for at least ten years so most of the hunting is done with shotguns. Almost all the hunters (Japanese and American) that I hunted with carried thier guns with 000 Buck although a few carried slugs. I shot a 300 pounder from about fifteen feet and he dropped like a rock. Shot placement is key, forget head shots go for the vitals!

Hevi-shot is even denser and harder and should provide exceptional penetration.

"Hevi-Shot Ammunition 12 Gauge 2-3/4" 1-3/8 oz Hevi-Shot Slug Box of 5"

- about $13 from Midway

Must...resist...sarcasm...:banghead:

Have at it, maybe I can improve my skills.

John

I used Remington or Winchester foster slugs for years. Some time back, I switched to the Rottweil Brenneke slugs. I never looked back. Time after time, the Brenneke would give deep penetration and almost instant kills on hogs and deer. They are quite accurate in my Remington 870 and my Browning A5.

JohnBT,

Aw c'mon , have some fun, live a little.
I know, post a pic of a $90K shotgun using some boar load.

You need to try the Brennke's if you have not.
Oh, did you ever try the Ballistic Product 28 ga slugs?

We having fun yet?

Steve

I'm still trying to find a gun that'll shoot pumpkin balls accurately. I just never got too interested at all in deer hunting. There weren't any when I was growing up. I'm still fascinated by the new alloys being used, mostly just out of curiosity, but in part because of the application to wingshooting.

I haven't tried the Hevi-Shot slugs either - too busy - but if they're half as good as the duck and goose loads they'll just crush a target. The question was about penetration and if it's denser and harder than lead it should penetrate better.

Talking about ballistics and penetration, anybody looked at the www.tungstensupershot.com site? They're putting it on the market for ducks and geese and the stuff reportedly flat out penetrates at unbelieveable distances and doesn't string out. It's nearly $4 a shot, but their #7 shot and a cylinder choke will go through a Mallard at 60+ yards. The #5 shot is good for more and is their goose load. They only make #5 and #7 so far and they're working on figuring out a 20 ga. load. Maybe I'll read a little more on it and start another thread.

Edited to add: It does all this at lower velocity with a 50% reduction in recoil over the typical waterfowl loads.

There are pics and specs on the site, including pics of patterns and tests on ducks.

I'll just keep shooting #6 Hevi-Shot over decoys. The 3" #4 messes the Mallards and Canadas up something terrible at 35 yards or so.

John

P.S. - Speaking of ducks and being busy...

We built a high-rise duck blind in the marsh Saturday. The only boards we bought (12- and 16-foot treated 4x4's) went a good 4 or 5 feet down into the bottom. We wanted something tall enough to let us see over the 7-foot-tall marsh reeds. We used a 3' x 12' section of dock washed up by the last storm for the floor and let me tell you that was fun getting it up overhead out of a 16' Carolina skiff.

We framed and braced the whole thing with treated 10' and 12' planks fished out the Rappahannock after the last storm and those suckers were still damp and real heavy and full of nails. Being too lazy to bother with a tape measure, we nailed it all up and then I trimmed all of the ends off with my chainsaw. My friend even found a treated set of 5 steps floating in the river, so we have easy access from what passes for solid ground.

I've killed hundreds of wild pigs and a bunch of them were taken with a shotgun. Any OO or OOO buck or Slug load that is accuret out of your shotgun will work just fine. Pigs really arent that hard to kill. I have killed a few out to 75 yards with a slug and a lot more that were up close and personal, less then 10 yards and a couple at six feet or less.

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot16.htm

You can go here to see what slugs and a .45-70 will do. I think you'll be impressed.

Re: Gelatin Testing and Boxes of Truth

While I appreciate the time, expense and reporting - Nothing is absolute.

Every gun that comes off an assembly can be different. Every Lot of ammunition can be different.

In shooting structures, such as actual dwellings, with various building materials, varies, as does shooting building materials "loose" and not "constructed".

Hunting - animals do not know they are "supposed" to react a certain way when being shot. For sure they do not know the differences in Firearms being made, the platforms, the calibers, the gauges the type of loadings - etc.

Gelatin Testing and Boxes of Truth do provide some insights, using a baseline, to compare various firearms, calibers, and loadings - based upon THAT baseline.

Do not fall into Absoluteness about these testings. Too many variables to be Absolute.

Simply moving forward, or backwards a few feet will give different results. This happens with something as simple using a Chronograph.

Real world observations are good for tracking - then again, no guarantee any two circumstances, will be the same.

True example, I was present in the Main OR when the gentleman was brought in with a Gunshot wound.

He stuck a 4" medium frame .357 Revolver, with .357 loads in his mouth and pulled the trigger. He lived. He lost some sinus, palate and all, still he lived.

ALL the "tests" one reads "says" the .357 is "the man-stopper".

I was in the OR when this gentleman was rushed in. I was present during his Surgery. I saw him in Recovery. He is still alive.

All I am suggesting is, keep an open mind, and do not fall into Absoluteness based on any testing.

The Lightfield Light's shoot and group well in my rifled barrel Ithaca Deerslayer with great penetrtation and it's only a 20ga.

There was a post here a while back where a member shot a big pissed off blackbear with a low recoil Remington LE slug from a 14" 870. If I remember correctly the slug shattered the shoulder on the entry side, went through the heart and both lungs, then shattered the other shoulderblade and came to rest in the skin on the opposite side of the entry would.

The pigs don't get too big until you get into the swamps in Georgia and Florida, according to what my hog huntin' friends have told me.

Any kind of slug should do......But why not just use the .45/70?

Anothe vote for whatever slug is most accurate in your gun.Any 12 ga slug will kill a hog.

Karl.

I also have an Ithaca Deerslayer in 12ga smoothbore. Last week I shot a deer who was facing me at the time. The slug entered the base of the neck and was recovered just under the skin behind the rear leg after it depleted the last of it's energy punching a hole through some nice steak in the rear leg.
The slug was a Federal Tru-Ball. So there you go, a Federal Tru-Ball can penetrate a good . . . must be about 36 inches of deer. YMMV on hogs.
+1 on the "most accurate" comment also. The tru-Balls are the most accurate rifled slugs I have found for my deerslayer. We are talking groups half the size of any other slug I could find.

The Remington Tactical slug expanded to over an inch, and did not make it thru a pig I shot in a cage trap a few months back. He died in a few seconds though. In the past Brenneke have gone right thru. Federal Tru Balls seem to be much more accurate in my smooth bores when I tested them a month or so back. They are pricey for training though. I would not hesitate to buy a few boxes of them and sight in my gun with a box or so and keep the other box to go hunting if I were you!