Im Calling BS...

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Not just possible but probable with iron sights if he has been practicing with the shotgun and can see.

Buddy of mine killed a buck at around ninety yards with a rifled slug using iron sights. And he wears glasses and his usual hunting firearm is a rifle.

He moved to Ohio close to two years ago and killed a very big buck his first season up there. I don't know what the range of that one was but smoothbore shotgun barrels with modern rifled slugs are better than you apparently know.
 
Very doable. I watched a watched a guy on the Peoria, IL swat team hitting his target (which had a BG holding a handgun pointing at the shooter) 3 out of four times in the hands with iron sites and a 12GA mossberg with rifled slugs at 100Yards. There is no way he could have been picking the hands as a target, but he was shooting center of mass ( You could see the dark outline, but not the filler lines, I was using a spotting scope about 20 ft. back) and could have easily taken a deer at 100 yards. Hell he was shooting a 3 inch group with em. I don't know if he was just lucky that day, or if he was an exceedingly rare shot, but I personally witnessed that one. He shot from a standing position.
 
Doable. I've harvested a moving spike buck at a measured 63 yards using a 12 GA slug from a Mossberg 500A (18.5" Cylinder Bore/Bead Sight). Easy shoulder, heart, lung shot. Wouldn't have even considered it if I weren't confident in slug performance and accuracy at that range. I use 75-80 yards as my consistent outer limit with that weapon.
 
How did he establish eighty yards as the distance? I have noticed that most people are woefully unreliable judges of distance. WAG by sight is what most people use. Few enough can do an accurate and _repeatable_ pace count on pavement or cut grass, let alone out in the wood or weeds.
 
What's unusual about that shot? It was a good one, but certainly not an incredibly great shot.
 
I'll throw in with those that say that this is a very doable shot. I hunt hogs with an 870 using smoothbore barrel with rifle sights and rifled slugs. I would consider that distance easily within range of my gun.

Granted it would be harder with a bead sight, but I learned a long time ago to never underestimate what a man that knows how to use his gun can do with it.
 
At a tactical shotgun match a couple of weekends ago, I was able to hit 3 out of 4 IDPA-sized steel gong targets at 75 yards with a shotgun that belonged to someone else.

No optics other than one of those fiber-optic front sights.

And I consider it fairly pathetic that I didn't get 4/4.
 
I've also got a Liberty double Coach Gun that...with just the bead...converges the slugs on target...2 inches high at 50 yards.
The holes are nearly touching.
Click to expand...

At 50 yards, my Spartan coach gun puts the right barrel a little left and the left barrel by the same margin to the right. At 80, I'd have to use a little more Kentucky windage, but it groups 2" at 50 with either barrel, pretty danged good. Only reason I bother with it is because I feel this gun is useful for hiking and use as a "combination" gun by shooting slugs, gives you versatility. I don't plan on actually deer hunting with it, have rifles for that. But, as general outdoor guns, coach guns are REALLY versatile, well, if you can choke 'em. Mine came with five chokes. 20 gauge ain't got a lot of umph past 50 yards, anyway, so the gun is a bit limited in range. But, it has a bit of a notch at the rear which just sorta cradles the bead and shoots dead on for elevation when you cover the target with the bead. Pretty neat.

To the OP, it's time for some range time! :D
 
"People are still falling into the error of bragging about shots they should not have taken. It is not how far away your animal was, but how close you were able to get. Generally speaking, no shot attempted beyond 300 meters on a game animal should be exemplified. If you can get closer, get closer. Possibly the old Indian custom of counting coup might be revived. If you can get close enough to a white tailed deer or a Rocky Mountain bighorn to slap him with the flat of your hand, you have really achieved the remarkable."
Jeff Cooper
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I'm going to have to disagree with Mr. Cooper's statement, without disagreeing with the meat of what he was actually trying to say...

If you can make a shot, and it fells the animal, I'm fairly certain that the length of shot is what's being bragged about.

Being able to brag about your woodcraft is something else entirely, and while they're not mutually exclusive, they're not necessarily complimentary, either.

An 80-yard shot with a smooth bore shotgun + a red dot does not sound all that impressive to me, and it seems reasonable to me that an experienced shooter should be able to make it, offhand or otherwise.

Rifling didn't add so much to firearms that anything before it is useless. The bigger improvements have been in sights, and shooter accuracy.

Let's just say I'd not stick my head up and go "neener neener!" at someone trying to shoot me with a shotgun from 200 yards. :p
 
I've practiced with my smoothbore 870 and Brenneke slugs at 100 yards plus. I'd prefer to keep my shots within 50 yards but have spent enough time learning what the gun can at longer ranges an 80 yard shot is very possible on a deer sized animal.
 
Very doable, in fact I did it a few years ago with an 18.5 inch cyl bore barrel on an 870 with a 2.5 x shotgun scope and a Breneke slug on a one-time Illinois hunt I got lucky enough to get drawn for. Admittedly the scope may be an advantage over the red dot. But I practiced at ranges out to a 100 yds till I was confident I could do it. If I were going to hunt with a shotgun for deer more often, I would invest in a rifled barrel, they increase accuracy and extend range, but I wouldn't let "not having one" keep me from going hunting.
 
You did well to bite your tongue. As other mentioned, a very makable shot.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't go buy a slug barrel, but before you do you may want to try practicing with the barrel you have. You might be surprised, and it could save you some cash. Or, you may be disappointed with the results, and then you can go get a slug barrel, but it won't cost you much to go shoot some slugs through your barrel to find out.
 
I put a doe down a few years ago with an 18" smooth bore and 2x scope shooting Winchester Super X slugs at 80 yards. No problem whatsoever. A chip shot, even.
 
Quote:
Old guys can pull some disgustingly good shots sometimes
Click to expand...
And some of'em can do it with disgusting regularity...
Click to expand...

And that right there is why I ride in the middle seat of the pickup when I'm ridin' with old guys, some of that might just rub off.....
 
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