Why are shotguns often so reviled for big game hunting?

[kudu]

The state of Indiana was shotgun only for deer until the mid 1980's when they started allowing pistols to also hunt with in .357Mag and larger. Not a great difference in range over shotguns and most with much less power. My 11-87 with a rifled slug barrel was accurate out to about 125yards, then the slug would drop quickly. Mid 90's IIRC they started allowing rifles with a minimum .357 diameter with a case at least 1.2" long but not to exceed 1.8". Custom rifle makers embraced this with lots of wildcats, one called the 35 Hoosier was a Winchester Ultra short mag case cut down to exact length and sized to .357 caliber. Heavy hitter out to 300+ yards, but the guns were pricey. With many corn and bean fields out there it was a good deer gun. Of course all the pistol caliber lever rifles were also legal, most were 150 yard guns at most.

About 2012 Indiana decided to allow standard rifles of at least .243/6mm with a certain case length for private land, but no public land. Everybody decided to buy a high powered rifle that could shoot 300-400 yards accurately if the shooter knew what he was doing, which sadly most are not. So 7mm mags and 30-06's and .308's are everywhere in the deer woods. My family farm has many areas that if I so decided I could take deer out to 600+ yards. I rarely hunt anymore, I am happy to let my daughter go out and hunt deer, she prefers a .357 mag in a Savage 24V combo rifle that I have tweaked the cartridge to run 180 grain bullets at near 1700fps. She has dropped two deer at 100 yards with this gun, one passed through and the other was just under the skin on the off side, big 200 pound does. She is still trying to get her a nice buck.

If she had to use a slug shotgun, I doubt that she would hunt, as she does not like the recoil, she has tried my .243 Win bolt rifle and still doesn't care for the big boom of the rifle.

 

[d2wing]

I was never really a deer hunter when I lived back in the northeast. All the endless sitting and waiting bored me to tears during my precious limited time off.

For that reason, a shotgun was a good choice for me. I could wander around “deer hunting” for a bit, and when I got bored with that, toss in some bird shot and probably actually go home with some meat. The multi-tool was the best choice for my type of hunting.

I note the above to explain my affinity for and bias toward shotguns. However, I’ve never really understood why shotguns are quite as reviled as they are for deer and other larger game. Shotgun Slugs (and to an extent buckshot) are potent at close to moderate range. Are 1oz or heavier, .725” diameter chunks of lead really leaving deer regularly wounded and escaping?

Granted, a shotgun wouldn’t be a great choice for hunting Pronghorn on a plain or deer over a bean field, but in most places, if a hunter is in the woods, 50 yards is likely a typical visibility limit rendering moot a rifle’s flat trajectory.

I can’t help but wonder why in states and locations that were historically shotgun only, the second straight walled metallic cartridges were allowed, deer hunters were tossing aside their shotguns with the same disdain they would have when dumping a girlfriend with borderline personality disorder.

we’re shotguns failing so regularly all those years?

I live in state that has both rifle and shotgun zones. I have shot many deer with both. I have also hunted in party hunts where deer are driven. I have seen a lot of deer shot with shotguns and the results aren't pretty. Slugs tend to pass through without doing much damage. I have seen deer take 5 slugs an keep going. I have also had to track deer a long way after being hit. So slugs are in general poor killers although I have had deer drop dead after one shot, that is the exception. The other thing is extremely poor accuracy beyond a few yards with most slug gins. Drop is so bad that charts only go to 125 yards. The only combination I have that gives reasonable accuracy at 50 yards is a Remington 11-87 rifle slug gun with a red dot sight and Winchester premium Sabot slugs. It may do 75 yards but I haven't tried it. I have heard a lot of fantastic stories about long shots with a shotgun but I don't believe a one. On the other hand I have shot maybe a hundred or more with a rifle and the results are always better. Better shot placement and more reliable killing. Like I said I have had nice kills with a shotgun but well within 50 yards and they are rare. In my experience, the idea of big bullet knockdown power is all myth. Not any truth to it at all.

 

[FL-NC]

This varies by location, laws, and traditions. Here in Fl, shotguns with either buck or slugs are fairly commonplace in the deer woods, especially for hunters who hunt deer with dogs. I personally don't care for that type of hunting, so I hunt from a stand or blind with either a rifle, or a muzzleloader, or a crossbow. With the exception of critters with feathers, I have no use for a shotgun.

 

[Jason_W]

I live in state that has both rifle and shotgun zones. I have shot many deer with both. I have also hunted in party hunts where deer are driven. I have seen a lot of deer shot with shotguns and the results aren't pretty. Slugs tend to pass through without doing much damage. I have seen deer take 5 slugs an keep going. I have also had to track deer a long way after being hit. So slugs are in general poor killers although I have had deer drop dead after one shot, that is the exception. The other thing is extremely poor accuracy beyond a few yards with most slug gins. Drop is so bad that charts only go to 125 yards. The only combination I have that gives reasonable accuracy at 50 yards is a Remington 11-87 rifle slug gun with a red dot sight and Winchester premium Sabot slugs. It may do 75 yards but I haven't tried it. I have heard a lot of fantastic stories about long shots with a shotgun but I don't believe a one. On the other hand I have shot maybe a hundred or more with a rifle and the results are always better. Better shot placement and more reliable killing. Like I said I have had nice kills with a shotgun but well within 50 yards and they are rare. In my experience, the idea of big bullet knockdown power is all myth. Not any truth to it at all.

interesting. I’m curious what type of slugs were delivering poor kills as an early poster reported excellent results on hogs and deer.

 

[d2wing]

interesting. I’m curious what type of slugs were delivering poor kills as an early poster reported excellent results on hogs and deer.

I had a little better results with sabot slugs. I don't think there is a whole lot of difference. Sabot slug in a rifled barrel add accuracy and range but not lots more. Shotguns do well if you can get pretty close and place your shots like anything else. Placement is more difficult with shotguns. I can't account for what others claim, what their range and conditions are and what is pretty good. I can only report my extensive experience in a variety of conditions and equipment. Shotguns are my last choice for hunting deer. I do a lot of bird hunting and have a couple decent shotguns and a nice slug gun. I like shotguns, just not for deer or other big game.

 

[Fine Figure of a Man]

Having taken many deer with a 12 gauge & slugs, I can say there are only two reasons to use a shotgun for big game. When it is the only legal option and when the only gun you have is a shotgun.

 

[MacAR]

In my youth, I only had one gun, and it was an ancient 10 gauge sxs hammer gun with 34" barrels. When I reloaded for it, I would load 2 .72 caliber musket balls on top of ~140 grains of 2F black powder for my first shot, then 1.25 oz of #1 buck shot over 125 grains of the same black powder for my second, and both loads used brass 2 7/8ths cases with rifle primers and were sealed with waterglass. I killed a LOT of deer on drives (and in front of dogs before they were outlawed), and never seemed to really need the second barrel. Of course the range was only 25 or 30 yards, with a 40 yard shot being rare but still do-able. I later graduated to a 30-30, and it didn't take me long to see how handicapped I'd been in the range department!

But as far as killing deer, that old 10 gauge did a fine job so long as I did my part. Later on (as in, the past couple years) I began to slowly go back to the shotgun for getting my deer. The old '06 still gets her share, of course, but more and more I find that my old 1897 Winchester and some #4 buck really do the job on whitetails in our thick brush. I have one spot that I like to go and set at, just before daylight. Its a creek crossing, and there's a fallen rock not 15 feet from their trail. I set behind the rock, and when they come across, I let the first one's head get level with my gun barrel and then it's meat in the freezer.

So yes, I think a shotgun does a decent job of killing deer; in this area it has for years. My pap always said there wasn't anything in this country you couldn't kill with a 16 gauge and high brass sixes; you just had to get close enough. And given that he was a child of the Depression, I have no reason to doubt he knew it to be fact.

Mac

 

[d2wing]

For that matter most of US big game was hunted to near extinction before modern high velocity cartridges were developed. The Massive Sioux uprising that killed over 1000 settlers was caused in part by game shortages during the Civil War. A frustrated hunting party started the war near Litchfield, Minnesota by killing a farm family over stolen eggs. Nearly everyone was armed with single shot muzzleloaders at the time. Sure shotguns work. Only slugs are legal here. But life is so much better with a modern centerfire.

 

[Jason_W]

For that matter most of US big game was hunted to near extinction before modern high velocity cartridges were developed. The Massive Sioux uprising that killed over 1000 settlers was caused in part by game shortages during the Civil War. A frustrated hunting party started the war near Litchfield, Minnesota by killing a farm family over stolen eggs. Nearly everyone was armed with single shot muzzleloaders at the time. Sure shotguns work. Only slugs are legal here. But life is so much better with a modern centerfire.

If I thought I was going to be regularly hunting big game in a place where vegetation is a bit on the sparse side, I’d definitely go with a flat shooting scoped rifle.

I’m in Northern California now, so I don’t see a reason to bother with it as the deer hunting here is apparently at least as bad as it was back in Vermont and Maine in terms of hunter success rates.

If I happen to have an opportunity to hunt deer that costs me no money beyond tags, there’s actually more thick patches here than I expected. The stands of manzanita and whatever the native scrub oak species is aren’t conducive to long shots. A shotgun will be fine for all the deer I won’t see.

I notice that while there are big open areas between the scrub patches, deer don’t tend to hang out in them.

I still like the idea of mixed bag foraging hunts which was what I grew up doing. I’d like the option of killing a deer in the unlike event that I happen across one of the very few categories of deer that are legal to take, but I don’t want to have to pass up likelier meat because the gun in my arms will turn smaller critters into scattered burger.

maybe some day I’ll be able to afford a quality combo gun or drilling for the above sort of hunt.

 

[d2wing]

If I thought I was going to be regularly hunting big game in a place where vegetation is a bit on the sparse side, I’d definitely go with a flat shooting scoped rifle.

I’m in Northern California now, so I don’t see a reason to bother with it as the deer hunting here is apparently at least as bad as it was back in Vermont and Maine in terms of hunter success rates.

If I happen to have an opportunity to hunt deer that costs me no money beyond tags, there’s actually more thick patches here than I expected. The stands of manzanita and whatever the native scrub oak species is aren’t conducive to long shots. A shotgun will be fine for all the deer I won’t see.

I notice that while there are big open areas between the scrub patches, deer don’t tend to hang out in them.

I still like the idea of mixed bag foraging hunts which was what I grew up doing. I’d like the option of killing a deer in the unlike event that I happen across one of the very few categories of deer that are legal to take, but I don’t want to have to pass up likelier meat because the gun in my arms will turn smaller critters into scattered burger.

maybe some day I’ll be able to afford a quality combo gun or drilling for the above sort of hunt.

If it is legal carry a few slugs in season. I have done that. It actually worked once. You will have to hone your hunting skills. Sounds like fun.

 

[earlthegoat2]

interesting. I’m curious what type of slugs were delivering poor kills as an early poster reported excellent results on hogs and deer.

That was me I am sure. I have nothing but good things to say about foster slugs inside of 75 yds and sabots (from rifle barrels) inside of 150. As I said before, it seems some find this range limitation unacceptable. I get it, there are better options but it would seem we are talking about how effective shotguns are and not how they compare to rifles when a word like reviled is used to describe them. Reviled implies there is a perception that they are incapable of killing properly.

Foster slug<75yds=dead deer. Usually a DRT. (my definition of DRT is usually Dropped Right There, not necessarily Dead Right There. For my purposes, as long as the animal does not move from where it was standing the round used was a 100% success. If they get up after that, well then, that's not a DRT) . Does not matter if it was a double lung, heart, high shoulder, whatever)
Sabot slug<150yds=dead deer. Often but not as often DRT. Heart shots will usually not drop them but double lungs seem to work pretty well.

If you did your due diligence and sighted in your shotgun with slugs (within the limitations of your sights and your own shooting limitations, right?)(and you tried different brands and types of slugs too, right? Remington, Winchester, Federal, or the one everyone forgets about and is probably the best of them all, Brenneke) then you should hit your target if it is a high percentage shot. (target standing still, etc.)

I'm not sure there is enough bandwidth on this board for me to give personal examples of how much success I have had with slugs and how little failure. There was a catch though. I didn't take long shots. If they were out of range, I wasn't shooting. At the same time I have been party to other folks failures many times. You cant expect to get good shots on moving targets, targets out of range, or in the case of my dad, if your eyes are too old to see the open rifle sights he was using on his slug gun. (a low power scope fixed that)

Some interesting things I have seen with shotguns shooting deer:

-12 ga Foster slug at 30yds broadside right into the ham of a mature doe. DRT. That is not a typo. D-R-T. It did not move or twitch. I cannot fully explain this but can only assume the deer had undertaken such shock from the impact that the spine (and possibly the brain) was disrupted. You know, .73 caliber, 437 gr projectile going around 1300 fps at that range. Either way the deer was dead when approached.
-20 ga Foster slug at 60 yds broadside into the goodies of a small buck and into the liver of the mature doe right behind it. Both DRT.
-20ga Barnes sabot slug at 40 yds frontal shot on a large doe into the chest and exited out the keister. DRT Those slugs and their inferior sectional density.
-Or, 12 ga Lightfield sabot broadside through the heart of a doe. Typical. Ran 40 yds and crumpled.
-Heres a good one. This is an example of a yahoo shotgun hunter. 12 ga pump with just a bead. Shoots a buck in the guts with a foster slug and it drops right there. Approaches the deer and sees its still alive. He raises his gun to finish it off and somehow the deer snaps his head back and he ends up shooting off an antler. (The slug carried on though still killed it.) This seems like it could only happen to someone who just bought his license the day before and never sighted his gun in properly.

So what I am getting at is for me, IME, slugs are devastating on animals. I am curious how they would fare against elk and moose. However, as has been touched on earlier, if a rifle is an option, it is probably a better option than a shotgun. If in some bizzaro world I absolutely knew a shot was going to be 20 yds away I would probably opt for the shotgun if the game was in NA. If not a shotgun, my next option would not be a bottleneck rifle round but probably a similarly slow and short range cartridge like a 45-70 or 444 Marlin.

As it is, I currently can use any centerfire and I opt for a 44 mag rifle. This is mostly because I also hunt in a straight wall state. This gun has About the same ballistics as a sabot slug. Why aren't pistol caliber rifles so REVILED? 357 rifles or (gasp) handguns must be really anemic. Why is nobody condemning them so hard and heartily?

 

[Jason_W]

It would be interesting to pit various shotgun slug loads against magnum revolver rounds fired from carbines and compare terminal performance out to 125 yards or so.

 

[alsaqr]

i sometimes hunt wild hogs using a scoped and rifled 20 gauge model 670 Express shotgun and sabot slugs. Hunting is mostly from a blind or stand and shots are normally <50 yards. Most bang flop.

 

[Jason_W]

I think maybe the biggest sticking point for me is cost of practice, though this can be mitigated by casting and handloading. The Lyman sabot mold provided great results for me, even from a smooth bore.

 

[earlthegoat2]

I think maybe the biggest sticking point for me is cost of practice, though this can be mitigated by casting and handloading. The Lyman sabot mold provided great results for me, even from a smooth bore.

This is a big reason so many shotgun hunters immediately switch to straight wall cartridges when their state allows it. It was always hard to pay 10-15 dollars for 5 sabot slugs.

 

[illinoisburt]

Limited range and recoil are usually the big turnoff. I hunted deer with slugs for over 25 years in Illinois. I've seen small errors in yardage estimates resulted in many a mangled front leg for guys shooting at deer in picked fields. Even with a 20 guage rifled barrel and sabot rounds, 125 yards is a really long poke for slugs. Far and away most slug guns I saw in the field were smooth bores with a bead. Good enough for 20 to 50 yards maybe. Most hunters are not "gun guys" and shooting more than a couple sighters per year is uncommon. Taking an opportunity to swap for a scoped rifle with substantially less kick that shoots like a laser beam by comparison is an absolute no brainer. Even a 357 or 44 carbine is a huge step forward.

 

[bearcreek]

we’re shotguns failing so regularly all those years?

In some ways, yes, they were. Compared to the straight wall cartridge rifles you reference, shotguns kick lots harder, are less accurate, shorter range, use heavier, bulkier ammo, are more expensive to shoot and are generally harder to mount an optic to. For someone who's primary use for the weapon is deer hunting, a shotgun does everything worse than a straight wall cartridge rifle in an appropriate caliber.

 

[equin]

I haven't hunted deer in decades, but when I lived in South Mississippi in the 80's, shotguns were what most of us used. In fact, the landowner wouldn't let us use anything else but a shotgun on his land for deer hunting. The habitat was heavily wooded pine and very thick brush. The only "clearings" out there would be right-of-way utility easements if they crossed anyone's land. A lot of deer were harvested with shotguns using dogs who would flush them out and towards the hunter waiting in a stand. That was almost 40 years ago, though. I'm in Texas now. Not sure how it's done nowadays in South Mississippi.

 

[dak0ta]

The beauty of the shotgun is changing loads from shot to slugs while in the bush enabling multiple critters in your gamebag.

 

[Jason_W]

The beauty of the shotgun is changing loads from shot to slugs while in the bush enabling multiple critters in your gamebag.

and a bag full of birds is better than nonexistent deer any day of the week.

 

[entropy]

The beauty of the shotgun is changing loads from shot to slugs while in the bush enabling multiple critters in your gamebag.

In States that allow that. Some have right in the regs no carrying slot if you are deer hunting, or slugs if you are small game/bird hunting.

 

[bearcreek]

and a bag full of birds is better than nonexistent deer any day of the week.

True. For most people though, shooting at birds is just reducing your chances of getting a deer. For someone like me who hunts to feed my family, not for sport, I can't afford to be scaring deer away by shooting at birds. Just depends on why you're out there. You asked specifically about big game hunting, not birds so......

 

[Fine Figure of a Man]

Think back to your first BB gun, watching the bb's swerve left, right, up and down unpredictably with every shot. That is hunting with a smooth bore shotgun and slugs.
Of course many tales are told of hitting beer cans every time at 100 yards with slugs from old smooth bore pump guns. I learned long ago that setting a beer can on a post at 100 yards brought the story telling to and abrupt end.

 

[Jason_W]

True. For most people though, shooting at birds is just reducing your chances of getting a deer. For someone like me who hunts to feed my family, not for sport, I can't afford to be scaring deer away by shooting at birds. Just depends on why you're out there. You asked specifically about big game hunting, not birds so......

It depends on where you’re hunting. Where I grew up, hunting deer was probably the least efficient way to put meat in the freezer, no matter how good you are at sitting in one spot in the cold from dawn til dusk. You could do ok with small game (ruffed grouse and snowshoe hare, primarily) though.

I wasn’t a sport hunter either. My method of hunting small game gives khaki clad well to do bird hunters the vapors. Let’s just say I’d never pass up a skillet shot

 

[dak0ta]

I find grouse hunting more challenging than deer sometimes... those little buggers are hard to see, then they flush and give you a heart attack, and then you have to recover and track them in the timber for a shot. Deer, once you find one, just stand there and let aim at them... my experience so far with hunting with a shotgun.