Being honest,
I never warmed up to sabots personally.
Reasons are simple, where me and mine use slugs, we are not restricted to shotgun only areas, and some areas we hunt are that dense, meaning closer shots.
If we need greater distance, we are going to use a rifle.
I am going to use a 30-30 with 170 gr bullets personally.
I am not into "sky busting" or "taking the long shot", I am old school in using woodscraft skills to get closer to game to make a ethical kill.
Being honest again, I am not all that big of a proponent of using rifled slugs from rifled bores either.
It only a takes a few shots for the rifling to get clogged with lead, and accuracy diminishes fast.
Rifled barrel, means cleaning that whole barrel.
Choke, means cleaning the choke.
There is no holy grail on any of this stuff, and one has to consider their rules , regs, and environment as to guns and loads.
Some guns were better with sabots and some with rifled slugs, it just takes shooting to see what a set up likes.
My problem is, offerings can and do change, so a neat new offering works like a top, and then for whatever reason, that offering is changed and one's gun hates that loading.
Ammo mfg/ components mfg get caught up in mergers and acquisitions, buy metals on the market for less monies and the alloys differ, another plant gets the contract to cast, or reload...
I have seen this happen with just plain old shotgun shells using shot, we know this happens with the "slug" market.
Now I personally tested stuff for the sake of something to do, as I pattern pellet loads, and go from the regular working person viewpoint that is going to shoot.
I am not into anal retentive, or compulsive about it. I am not that smart, and not a ballistic person and math is not my strong point. I am not into marketing or selling, or trying to boost my ego.
Just a regular guy that likes shotguns, respects them, and appreciates a versatile tool one does not have to spend a lot of money on , to have a long gun to use for home defense , clays, hunting with pellets or slugs.
I don't mess with this like I used to, and times have brought about new things...and me being me...not everything new and fangled is really all that great, and often time is about taking money from wallets and not helping a shotgunner.
I personally use smoothbores with plain vanilla Forster slugs, the most, with Brenneke being the "good stuff" I sometimes use.
I prefer fixed choked guns.
I will share:
-Old barrels with meat with fixed chokes did better than newer barrels with less meat. My guess is harmonics plays a part.
-Ithaca Deerslayer barrels were darn sure named correctly, as those old barrels were designed with bore diameters that flat knew how to work with factory slugs.
-Winchester barrels the old ones , again, they flat designed barrels, from chamber , to forcing cone, bore dia, to that Win-Choke - right!
-H&R Topper and NEF know something about barrels too.
-Nu_Line external knurled chokes on Win guns, work real well together.
-There is a phenomenon with shotgun barrels being 19", 21", 23" and 25".
I discovered this in pellet loads, and I'll be darned if some guns that we had, with busted barrels, with meat, and qual'd gunsmith did the threads, did not show the same results. One was a 19" 1300 barrel re-cut to use factory Win-Choke. That gun was flat scary accurate!
-Round Ball Slugs, will surprise folks.
I wish I had gotten into Black powder,and I need to some day learn.
Still, growing up Mentors made /used round ball slugs , reloaded them, and used out of fixed choked smoothbore shotguns , in all 4 gauges, and these flat worked.
I ever get time and money, I want to mess with round ball slugs more, and view from a BP angle.
[All my notebooks and everything Mentors left me, burned up, and I'd rather have the mentors back, to share with me all of this again]
I am not really the one to ask, I am not that smart.
I do caution folks to not get wrapped around the axle, and get too anal retentive, or compulsive, and get too into marketing.
Here is one article, interesting, still just read it for what it is...
http://www.nrapublications.org/tah/Slugs.asp
Again, some of us have found some loadings are not being made as they once were. We have made calls and checked. Contracts were filled and the next person that gets the contract fills order to specs, still it seems some specs change, and is that due to factors we are not aware of, or something else?
I am staying with smooth bores and Forster slugs for my needs. I have some old Brennke's put back.
I guess if I was in a shotgun restricted zone, or actually deer hunted like I used to , I would put more effort into all this...
Art & Science is still fun to me though.