I have a mossberg 835 and have a rifled slug barrel on the way with the cantelever scope mount and was really thinking of putting on a red dot scope, or am I better off with a reg scope in either a fixed power or variable ? I need something for the state parks that I want to hunt more dont think I would be shooting much passed 100 yds . Another ? what type brand slug ammo do you recomend and do you like 3" or 2 3/4" better thanks for any help
I have a Rem 870 12ga with a cant. scope lever rail, I mounted a Nikon Buckmaster 3-9 power on it. I shoot Winchester Partition Gold 385gr rounds from it. Been hunting with it for 4 years now.
First thing is first: DON'T BUY A RIFLED SHOTGUN UNLESS YOU ARE COMMITED TO SPENDING A MOTHER LOAD OF MONEY TO SIGHT IT IN AND SHOOT IT.:banghead:
This is not a rifle, and you will spend a few hundred sighting it in and figuring out what ammo you want.
1 box = 5 shot = $12-$20= about
$3 per shot.
The ammo is not the most
consistent, FLIERS REALLY REALLY REALLY
STING.
You will need 2 boxes to get a confident grouping, then several more to test how reliable the groupings are, not all will give you the same each time. The $ adds up.:banghead:
I say all this becasue it is a little shock when you go buy a handfull of the brands to test getting just one box of each will round up to
$100.
I felt it necessary to warn you about all that since no one did to me when I got my rig. I wanted a more accurate shotgun since that is all I can hunt with here, and I am a rifle man really. I like to know where my rounds will hit at what range.
The other thing about, deer hunting and using a scope, it really depends on the style of hunting you are doing.
Party hunting, accept for opening day, opening hour, most of your shots will be running deer. I got lucky one year and a deer stopped and looked at me for a minute, I shot it in the head at 75 yards, and it dropped right there.
However, being able to pick your shot is very rare when the deer are being chased. And close range tracking shots are very hard. I shot a cyote this past season at 30 yards, running, but it took me 3 shots to hit it. I had a shot at 2 deer running broadside of me at 30 yards and couldn't find them in my scope.
The cyote I was able to take only because I powered my scope down to 3x after a mistake earlier.
I was set up for a long shot on a field dialed into 9 power, and I was in the sitting position up against a fence, so my side to side movement was very limited, and I was too zoomed in when they were in front of me running.
I said all that to illistrate a point, I would highly reccomend using
rifle sights and rifle sights only for hunting deer.
I love my scope, but I am quickly finding out it is the wrong tool for the job, party hunting.
However, if I was out by myself, and the deer were calm and not being chased, it would be the perfect tool. I could confidently hit a deer out to 200 yards with it.
And for opening shot of a party hunt, when the deer are calm, I has been perfect also.
Red dot sights would be ok, but unless you talk about theMark4 CQT or ACOG or Eotech, I have heard unreliable things about "red dots" from the field, such as not shooting exactly where you see the dot.
Shooting $3 bills makes me want to have the most accurate rig I can get.
If you absolutly have to have optics...
Spend the money, and don't shop on price. You can put optics on anything you want, even if you change your hunting gun.
I personally don't want anything battery powered, so when the battery fail you are left without a sight.
This is a business gun so you want it to be rugged.
You have to have a wide angle field of view. The wider the better, so you can track running deer.
You want an accurate scope that you can trust to shoot from the lowest power to the highest power.
You also need to have a long eye relief, of your face will get a little surprise during those quick shots.
You need the increments on the scope to be true to what they are supposed to be.
