So since I was able to harvest a nice buck last year with my 12g shotgun using 00 buckshot I thought of doing the same this year with a slug.
After much reading on the web I gathered all the tips that other shotgun slug shooters have used with the Lee Drive Key slug and put them to all together.
Equipment;
Lee Load All
Remington/Peterson blue hulls
Win WAA12F114 (Yellow wad)
Fed 20S1 yellow wad (just the base)
12 gauge 1/4" felt wad
CCI 209 primers
Hogdon Titegroup powder
Lee 1oz Drive slug cast from pure lead AC
Remington 870 Wingmaster with rifled cantilever barrel
Bushnell Elite 3200 3-9x40 scope
I chose the yellow wad as it had the thickest petal out of all my wads. I trimmed the petals down by clipping 1/4" off.
And the Federal 20S1 I completely cut the entire wad column off so i just had the base.
So it was 20S1 first then felt wad then 1oz slug; (the petals aren't clipped in the pic)
I then placed this load on top of 18.5 grs of the Titegroup powder and fully crimped.
Now off to the range. Where I am hunting i'll be using a ground blind like I did last year. The distance from my blind is the well used deer trail is 33 paces (30 yards) with a max shot of 50 yards!
So my target was placed at 33 paces from the shooting bench. My first 3 shots produced this group;
I did have other loads using Green dot and 800X but they didn't group quite like this. At 50yds the group opened up 1" No biggie.
So with all the tips and points and tricks that all you fellow boolit casters and shotgun slug shooters have come up with over the years have worked and I thank you :happy dance:
I tried all this back in 2008 and had the worst of luck using my 28" barrel Winchester 1200 with Carlson rifled choke tube, I gave up out of frustration and never went back until recently. After shooting a nice buck last year with my shotgun using a Federal 3" 00 buck shell I soon started thinking of that shot using a slug.
I have plenty of factory "Rifled" slugs on hand and even went as far as purchasing some factory Score "Thug Slug" loads, which shot well from a smoothbore with RCT mind you. Here's a pic of my 30 yard 3 shot group. I only had the forend on a sand bag and nothing supporting the butt. Shotgun is my Winchester 120 Ranger, 28" vent rib barrel with Carlson rifled choke tube and Tru Glo fiber optic sights. This was my first gun I got as a Christmas gift when I was 16.
Score 1oz slug, 3 shot group @ approx 30 yards
In the last week a Remington 870 Wingmaster with rifled barrel came into possession from a good friend of mine.
Right away I thought great, Now I'll be spending $25 bucks or more for some sabot slugs. I found some Winchester BRI slugs for cheaper than that. Well they never even got shot or taken out of the ammo can after I saw how well these Lee slugs grouped.
Here's some pics I thought I'd share
My recovered wads. You can see even though one batch weren't clipped shorter they still opened up well. They did however not group as well as the ones that were. They did group well mind you
Not all holes were touching lol
I haven't tried any 100yd shots/groups as I didn't need to. I have a nice 30-30 with NOE 165gr cat boolits for that
Off to the garage I go to cast some more slugs!
Thanks for reading :razz: