slugs or buck shot - Page 2

fabsroman · #16 10-30-2005, 09:21 AM

Lilred,

Like you, I was taught to shoot with one eye closed. Luckily though, I am right handed and right eye dominant. Nowadays, I tend to keep both eyes open as I acquire the target and bring the gun up to it. However, I still close my left eye before pulling the trigger. Regarding the right eye dominance thing, it might be that you are right eye dominant and are shooting the correct way (i.e., right handed). One of my sisters is left eye dominant and right handed, so I am in the process of teaching her how to shoot left handed. Sometimes she gets frustrated and goes back to the right hand, but she is trying to learn.

If you aren't shooting near 100%, there is room for improvement and there is always the possibility of changing technique. I have done it over the years. For instance, I used to shoot sporting clays with a mounted gun, but then tried it with a low gun and found it easier to track the target. Try shooting skeet with both eyes open and see how you do. You should also figure out whether you are right or left eye dominant.

skeet · #17 10-30-2005, 02:19 PM

Lil... I just bought an old Model 12 Winchester from a lady. Her Husband died 2 years ago and he had been a good friend. The only thing he used the gun for in the last 10 yrs was deer hunting. We can only use slugs here in this county, I cleaned the bore with a 10 ga bore brush and an electric dill and a bit of shooters choice. Had a fair amount of lead in the bore . Shot it the other night at the trap range near home and broke a 23 with it. I missed 2(I hate them darn near straightaways). It is an older trap gun and the fellow used it for everything..but he only hunted deer at the last. as far as doing things to me...remember my motto...Hurt me... beat me...make me feel cheap!! Hahahaha! BY the way guys...that only goes for Lilred. Y'all just stay quiet now ya hear??!!

Lilred · #18 10-31-2005, 06:42 AM

LOL...I always figgered you was a wild man skeet

I will try to do the "eyes open" thing on a couple practice runs fore the weekend iffin I git the chance. Sat is first day of loader..and I gotta werk till 2...but I am gonna hunt the afternoon. Maybe on Sunday I'll give it a whirl.
As fer as my next gun goes...I will try not to take the "slug gun" thing so seriously.
Ya know..the best part bout life..is that ya can never quit learnin.I am older now

and set in my ways a lil bit..but not afraid to try somethin new. Thanks fellas...ya'll are perty sharp..fer a bunch of wild men anyways

P.S ya'll might wanna watch it..some of the women on this here board likes em wild....LOL

wrenchman · #19 10-31-2005, 10:25 AM

me and the guys in my group kill deer every year with buck shot
we also youse slugs a lot.
I have shot deer at over 150 yards with slugs and at 15 yards with buck shot.
If you pattern your gun before you go hunting to make sure it will shoot buck shot well you wont have any problim.
In the area i hunt we have hunt with shot guns for deer.

GoodOlBoy · #20 10-31-2005, 12:56 PM

Yup I think that is what it really boils down to. If you are going to shoot buckshot with a shotgun you HAVE to know the gun. This ain't a grab it off a wal-mart shelf and run out and pop a deer with it game. You HAVE to know that gun, and alot of people simply don't. (Present company excluded)

Slugs in smoothbores. Yet again I think familiarity and ignorance have alot to do with the horrid reputation of the accuracy of slugs. Last night I spotted a guy at Wal-Mart buying a box of sabot slugs because his buddy highly recommends them. After bullshitting with him for half an hour I find out he has had cronic accuracy problems with slugs in his shotgun. It winds up boiling down to the following list.

He has a smoothbore shotgun.
His buddy has a rifled bore sluggun.

His buddy is very accurate with sabot slugs (designed for rifled bores), and cant get accuracy with rifled lead slugs (Designed for smooth bores) Therefor the chain of logic was that rifled lead slugs suck and sabots rock, therefore he was advised to buy yet another brand of sabots to try because sabots weren't grouping at all in his smoothbore. I finally talked him into paying $1.97 for a box of 5 rifled lead slugs and get him to try them in HIS smoothbore, not his buddies rifled bore slug gun.

This is a prime example of the problem. So many shooters assume that a slug is a slug is a slug, and if a rifled lead slug sucks in a rifled bore then it sucks in a smooth bore, and if a sabot slug rocks in a rifled bore then it rocks in a smooth bore. Both assumptions of which are false (And we have not even taken the finiky diet problems of various guns into consideration).

Take my home security shotgun example from before. With my 12 guage mossy cylinder choked persuader buckshot has a 3 foot pattern at 15-20 yards! Not what you want to use on a deer (But great for home security). But rifled lead slugs I can nail a 4 inch swinging pan at 75 yards EVERY shot. A buddy of mine bought slugs to shoot it one time and what did he buy? Sabot slugs. He couldn't hit a 10 inch pan at 35 yards with it, much less the 4 inch pan at 75 yards. A smooth bore just does NOT work well with sabot slugs they were not designed for that. For smoothbores rifled lead slugs are decent to great depending on the gun and the range, and smooth lead slugs are piss poor to decent depending on the gun and the range.

IE You HAVE to know your gun, and you HAVE to accept the shotcommings of the shot/slug type that you are shooting in THAT gun in the current enviroment (Be it the shooting range or the deer camp)

Like with all things we cannot assume that what works for one works for another. We can get general ideas! IE buckshot works within its limitations, and very well. Rifled lead slugs work within their limitations and very well. Sabot slugs work within their limitations and very well. And even good old fashioned smooth lead slugs can work decent within their limitations. But none of them is magic medicine. They are only as good as the person using them.

I grew up on shotguns, and am a natural born shotgunner. I prefere them to rifles and pistols (yes even over my 45s!) for everything from hunting to security. Heck I would put my old single shot H&R 20 guage that is 27 years old this year against anybodies anything! Why? Not that it is better than some of the works of art that guys on here have. Not that I am better than they are. But instead because I am familiar with that old gun, I grew up with it, and I accept it just like it accepts me. We know each others shortcommings, and we know each others long shots. Does that mean I am going to win every shot against some of the great shooters we have on here? No. But it means that even if I loose I will do so knowing that I did my best, my old shotgun did its best, the ammo did what it was supposed to, and there is no shame in the lose, and no excuses to be made.

“know thy enemy and know thyself; in a hundred battles you will never
be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your
chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy
and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril.”

-- The Art of War. Sun Tzu

"Know thy shotgun and know thyself, and in a hundred hunts you will never go hungry. When you are ignorant of the shotgun but know yourself, your chances of eating or starving are equal. If ignorant of both your shotgun and yourself you are certain to starve"
- East Texas GoodOlBoy shotgunner's take on what Sun Tzu said.

GoodOlBoy

Adam Helmer · #21 10-31-2005, 02:25 PM

skeet,

I gotta agree with you, shooting slugs in any shotgun will never "shoot the choke out of it" as I used to hear when I was a kid. I suggest folks go to the bench and shoot various slugs from their shotguns and carefully record where the gun's point of impact is in relation to point of aim. I have a dozen 12 gauge guns and all but two shoot slugs where "they are looking" out to 100 yards. I have deer barrels for two of my pumps and the rear sights are zeroed for specific makes of slugs and recorded in my shooting diary. The other guns have simple beads, but will keep slugs in the black on a smallbore target at 100 yards.

In PA, only the 4 or 5 Special Regulations counties near Philadelphia permit buckshot. I prefer slugs and have Federal, Winchester and Remington slugs put by for specific shotguns.

Adam

GoodOlBoy · #22 10-31-2005, 04:36 PM

Agreed, like Skeet and Adam the only "damage" I have seen from slug shooting in shotguns is lead fouling. Same thing I see in alot of used 22s.

GoodOlBoy

skeet · #23 10-31-2005, 11:08 PM

My shotgun shooting instructor once told me a really good thing to remember... When shooting a shotgun...if you see the front sight ....you're done! The meaning was..when shooting a shotgun if you look at what you want to hit... It is almost impossible to miss.... be it a flying bird or a running animal. The same holds true when shooting a slug. You shoot a slug gun the same way on a running deer. He started me shooting at flying things with a bb gun. throwing a ball up and hitting it got to be really easy...even with a bb gun. He kept making the target smaller and smaller. Eventually got to where I could throw up an aspirin and hit it 3 or 4 times out of 5. This really isn't a brag. It really is quite easy...once you get the hang of it. I have my grandson hitting small thrown targets pretty well. He is 10. My daughter used to make a bunch of the sports(goose hunters) look bad. I took them out in the middle of the day to a few farms to shoot pigeons. She was a great shot when something moved ..especially fast. Couldn't hardly hit a sitting squirrel(she finally got over that). 13 yr old gal that could outshoot almost all of them. It was funny. Taught her the same way. If you talk to a good rifle shot that uses open sights what the sights looked like on a running deer and he'll probably say...I don't know! Course he might lie a little

Oh BTW the bb gun I used...well that ol feller took the sights off that gun. Just look at the target

Jack · #24 11-01-2005, 09:48 AM

Durn, Skeet ! That brings back memories!
I learned to shoot a shotgun the same way- with a BB gun. Used wine corks and empty thread spools as targets.
Don't do much shotgun shooting these days, but when I do, I have to remind my self not to think....get to thinking about lead and follow thru and all that stuff, and I'm not gonna hit anything.

If I disengage my brain, things start falling when I shoot (well, more often, anyway)

GoodOlBoy · #25 11-01-2005, 02:44 PM

Mine was a Red Ryder BB gun, and my grandfather use to flick his cigarette butts out for me to shoot. . . . . Sheesh thought I was the only one.

GoodOlBoy

skeet · #26 11-01-2005, 04:42 PM

Ya know..that brings up another little thingie... I bought my grandson a Red Ryder. And I've seen a lot of other newer bb guns. The darn things are really no where near as accurate as the ones I had as a kid. And a kid down the road had onna them Daisy Pumps...put my ol lever gun to shame. What gives with these innaccurate new BB guns? Are there any good ones any more?? Heck and I thought I was the onliest one that knew about that bb gun trick...hehehehe

Yeah right!

GoodOlBoy · #27 11-01-2005, 05:29 PM

Ya know Skeet ol buddy. Last year my wife found my old red rider from when I was a kid, and seeing how bad a shape it was in she went out and bought me a new one. Not only is it not as acurate, heck it dont shoot a tenth as hard. . . . . I guess the good old days really are gone. . . .

GoodOlBoy

Adam Helmer · #28 11-01-2005, 05:32 PM

skeet,

In 1981, I went to Camp Smith, NY and attended a two-week FBI Advanced Firearms Instructors' Course. We spent three days shooting BB guns without sights at aerial targets. We then shot trap, skeet and a host of full auto arms. I fondly recall that class and did my first, of many, 25s straight at trap and skeet in later years right up to today.

Adam

skeet · #29 11-01-2005, 06:19 PM

GOB...I also noticed that..just forgot to mention it. They don't have any power anymore. Well I guess it's all about safety, ya know? Seriously..we could shoot at and hit blackbirds etc from a good distance. I am sure we did many a bird in at 25-30 yds. I don't think BB's are as large as bore size anymore either..or even close.

Adam I'll bet that was an eye opening experience. I don't think the average person realizes how much work goes into shooting well. I teach shotgun shooting. I prefer to teach women. Men are all born as Americans knowing everything there is to know about shooting. I have given a couple of shooting classes to the local sheriff's office deputies. Usually opens their eyes too. They can surely teach me about handgun shooting but they spend very little time learning to shoot the ol pump guns they carry. Most think if you point it in the right direction you can't miss. Most of my women students learn at twice the rate of the male students. BUT the males keep the knowledge while women usually forget it if they don't continue to shoot. I have a lady who's great desire is to shoot better than her..well...significant other....and his friends. She just got back from the Dakotas pheasant hunting.. and she shot well. Soon she is off to England for driven bird shooting and then to Spain for some other grouse shooting. Every year she comes back to see me before Dove season here and almost has to learn from scratch.... till this year. She remembered the last lessons of last year pretty well. BTW she shot better than the boyfriend last year and felt a little selfconscious because of it. . Got that changed now too....and did I mention she's rich?? And pretty nice looking too. Oh well!!

fabsroman · #30 11-01-2005, 07:59 PM

Come on Skeet, we all know why you like to teach the women more than the men. LOL No need to hide the true reason with things like "The women learn a heck of a lot better and, as a result, are much more fun to teach." Why not say, the men are hard heads and I find it a true challenge to teach them. That is why I like teaching men. LOL

I have always been saying that you are a high roller. You even hang around the high rollers. That lady has been on more hunts in one year than I will probably go on in a lifetime.

Okay, I guess I better stop harrassing you because I don't want you to embarrass me this weekend at the range.