Do Any of you guys hunt Big Game with your Shotguns?

[scotjute]

Hunted in north Louisiana when growing up with a 12 gage, full choke, auto, 2 3/4" shells. Prefer # 1 Bucks or # 0's. Longest kill about 55 yds. Believe # 4B's to be too small, and # 00B's to have too few pellets for deer. Range should be out to about 60 yds. Past that I have not patterned the shot.

 

[TNT]

I live in a shotgun only area so that is all I have ever used for deer. Started out with a Remington model 17 at the age of 12 then stepped up to a Remington 1100 20ga light model and when I was old enouph I bought my first Winchester 1300 with fully rifled barrel, now I use a Remington 11/87 with rifled barrel. I try to use different slugs every year. Last season I used the Hornady sabots and I think I'll be sticking to the Winchester sabots. The Hornady shot good but just didn't perform as good as I hoped on the deer.

 

[Rupe]

Have you tried the Lightfields?

 

[TNT]

I have not tried the lightfields, never seen any on the local shelves.

 

[Al Thompson]

TNT, if you have a Dick's near you, they seem to keep some on hand.

 

[Poodleshooter]

How are those slugs working out, PS?

I've done limited testing due to the foul weather, but preliminary testing gave 25yd impact identical to Remington 1oz slugs at 25yds (the holes actually overlapped).
The load was Federal Hi-Power hulls (paper basewad), Lee 1oz cast Drive Key slug, Fed 12S3 wad, Winchester 209 primer, and 28grs of Universal Clays (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK-THIS LOAD WAS WORKED UP FROM A LIGHTER LOAD AND USES SUBSTITUTED COMPONENTS). I'll get velocity data later. Remington factory 2-3/4" slugs show about 1560fps @80degrees out of my 24" rifled Mossberg. Due to the trajectory, I'm guessing that these reloads will show similar speeds.
I'm contemplating some hunting with the inlaws in upstate NY, so that's why I'm developing the slug load. These things are so darn cheap, I can actually afford to shoot them!

 

[Dave McCracken]

Thanks. I confess to being leary of substituting components, but I'm no expert on this.

As cheap as the 5 packs run, I'm surprised these run less.

 

[TNT]

I've never seen a Dick's in MN. I am planning on using the new Remington Buckhammer round if I can find any this fall. It's got 1.25 ounces of lead Should be interesting.