Time to switch slugs

[redneck]

Well I shot a small to mid sized doe tuesday night using my mossberg 500 12 gauge slug gun with a hornady SST slug. She was between 40 and 50 yards away and I hit her on the right shoulder just in front of the crease, and she was quartering so it exited in the middle of the left shoulder. Got the lungs and missed the heart. She went down very quickly. I was very happy with the results until I started skinning and boning her out.
Both shoulders were an absolute mess. In the grand scheme of things it wasn't that much meat lost on a deer this size but it was much more explosive results than I think are necessary. These slugs have great accuracy in my gun but I think I will try something else next year. I think they are better suited to shooting across bean fields than stalking one in the brush.

Anyone have a sabot slug they like that doesn't open up like a grenade?

 

[matrem]

I'd take that in a heartbeat over the old hourglass BRIs that refused to open.
Sabot slugs have come a long way in the past twenty years since then, however.

That's why most meat hunters I know try to hit a tick behind that shoulder.
There just isn't much meat in those ribs to ruin.

Congratulations on your deer.

 

[earlthegoat2]

I see no reason to change.

I have a lot of experience with Lightfields in 12 and 20 gauge and they have always dropped the deer I have shot. They do about that kind of damage too.

I have to ask: How many deer have you shot with slugs?

IME, fosters, lightfields, federal barnes, and the old remy coppers all made shoulder wounds like that. A shotgun slug is no joke.

 

[Armored farmer]

I agree with earlthegoat2. I think that's a pretty common looking entry/exit.
As far as I'm concerned, you said the magic words......

These slugs have great accuracy in my gun

.---stop right there!
You will be glad for that accuracy and performance when the 'big one' steps out at the far edge of your comfort zone.
FWIW we use Lightfields.

 

[rcmodel]

She went down very quickly.

Isn't that much better then trying to track a tiny blood trail in the dark for half a mile?

Don't fix it if it isn't broke!

rc

 

[3212]

This is why our game wardens use 12 guage slugs to dispatch injured bears.

 

[redneck]

This is the 2nd deer I have shot with the SST slug. The first one was a larger buck and results weren't quite as bad, but it still put a hell of a hole in him. I definitely don't like tracking in the dark, I bowhunt as well and have had that experience too. I was hoping there might be some kind of middle ground?

The deer I have shot with my .54 great plains rifle have all died just as quickly and I didn't lose any meat using a patched round ball.

Accuracy wise my gun shoots about the same with lightfields, remington copper solids, and hornadys and it seems like I can find the hornadys cheaper than the others most of the time so thats what I've gone with. I guess if the others do the same thing I won't bother changing.

I know hitting the shoulders is prone to cause meat loss, but I'd have had to shoot her pretty far back to not hit at least one shoulder due to the angle, and I didn't have a lot of time to take the shot.
She was the leader in a group of 4 does I snuck up on along the edge of a cornfield and just as I got a good angle on her a small buck came out of the trees about 20 yards west of them and 20 yards closer and I actually thought for a minute he was going to charge me.
He stood snorting and stamping his front feet with his head up like he wanted to challenge me. I had already filled my antlered tag for the year (he wouldn't have been a shooter regardless) so I had to let him walk, but I wasn't sure I should take my eyes off him at that distance. His antics stirred the does up, and they still hadn't noticed me but the lead doe turned around like she might leave so I turned and shot her and then swung back to the buck. He stomped once more and then turned and trotted off the way he had come. It wasn't an ideal shot but the entry wound was behind the shoulder blade. I was happy that she dropped, just thought there might be another option that doesn't leave an exit wound almost 3" wide.

 

[illinoisburt]

Looks life your slug gun performed exactly like a slug gun. About the same damage as the rifled slugs I've used (truballs, sluggers, power-shocks) with smoothbore twelve and twenty gauges. Big hole going in with a dead soft lead hollow-point, plenty of expansion and big exit hole especially if bigger bones hit. If you are worried about meat loss, better to change your point of aim than try to degrade the ammo.