Farthest reasonable slug shot?

[Steve RA]

Are sabot slugs illegal ???

[Moltke]

Ken,

You shot the match at Topton this past weekend, the 2 slug targets were 50 yards, how many people did you see miss them? Not practicing makes everything difficult. I like Kelly's suggestion of B/C out to 75 yards, full size IPSC 100, and the clay at 20-25 is an intimidating target, but not really that difficult, yet challenging.

Dan, Great point.

The technical aspect of shooting was not "hard" and people still missed... The slug targets presented were well within the limitations of all common 3 gun shotguns (2x BC steel's at 50 yards) and everyone there could probably make a 1st round hit if they focused on making the shot, but the GAME messed them up. Throughout the match all the targets were generous but to be successful the planning, teamwork, accuracy and speed needed to extreme - and the shooting was made hard not because guns were being stretched, but it was the competitors being stretched. Thanks for bringing that up.

[EkuJustice]

Sabot are legal but your gonna be using that same rifled barrel for the entire match. I think what hurts alot of people is they are not honest with themselves and what they are capable of doing. I don't practice alot with slugs as i have no interest in dropping a buck a shot to practice for something I shoot very few of a year in an actual match. If its a shot I am pretty confident in I take one good shot at it. If its one I think is a hail mary for my i burn one at it FAST and move on. Is it a stage winning plan nope but I could care less as I am not gonna win it anyway and am not gonna sit there and go to war with a target and hope I eventually get it. I am sure everyone has seen people go to war and spend alot more time trying to get one target than they would have have by just throw one and go and its even worse if they go to war and still have to leave it.

[alma]

Looked like a really fun match BTW

[Dan Sierpina]

Eku Justice brings up a point that I think applies to most casual 3 gun shooters. They don't want to drop $1.00 a shot for practice. I don't seem to practice anything a lot, but, I keep low recoil slugs plentiful, and will fire a couple from time to time. The biggest gain on shooting slugs is getting comfortable with the point of impact in relation to the point of aim.

Kurt spent a lot of time figuring and testing how to get a Benelli to shoot to point of aim. I spent a little time finding that I came to like my M2 shooting high, and use a 6:00 hold, this works great on clays at 20 -25 yards too.The bead doesn't cover the plate, and my hit percentage went up drastically. My Super Nova, I wind up holding on the lower right corner.

So, I'd keep B/C targets 50 -75 yards away.

[P.E. Kelley]

Without patting myself on the back too much, I imaging I can hit any slug target anyone else can, but that is not a good reason

to have slug targets at distances that many an offhand rifleman may not hit.

FUN is my main aim in playing this game. (wow a rhyme) and popping off buck-a-slug 12 bores at 300 yards barn doors (at a match) ain't...fun.

Now on my own time, what the heck, I am only impacting my own pocketbook. Hell at the MGM Junior Camp last week

I walked shots onto a "E" target at every bit of 200. Fun to try, but not so much on the clock at a match that I spent $1500 to attend.

[gose]

This past Friday I went to the range and did some testing with my own shotgun (accessorized competitive 3 gun shotgun)

Slugs at 50 & 100 yards on paper, open sights, with the low recoil slugs I've been using all year to get some actual data.

Results were disappointing -

From a bench with a precise point of aim using open sights, I'm shooting 3 inch groups at 50 yards. Sweet!

Then at 100 yards I'm shooting a 10-12 inch groups using the same gun, ammo, sights, etc. WTF.

My first thought was "wow I suck" even though I the shooting seemed perfect.

Then someone pointed out to me that rifled slugs through a choke swage down a bit so the farther they fly the less accurate they get.

I'll continue to test this as time goes on with other ammo's and chokes, but is anyone else getting similar results?

Really makes me re-think what level of accuracy I want in my slug shooting because 12 inches at 100 yards with open sights seems terrible.

Try some different chokes and slug brands. When I did my initial lengthy testing after getting my M2 I saw some pretty significant differences between brands. A little difference between chokes, but not nearly as much as between slug brands.

12" seems pretty bad. Mine does 3-4" from a sandbag @100 with the right slugs. Though, I also have folding 10/22 sights on, which makes it a little easier..

My MKA open guns dont shoot slugs as tight as the M2, but they're not too far behind and nowhere near 12"

[bigbrowndog]

here is another "accuracy" aspect to think about on slugs, check the "BC" on a slug, now check the velocity and put it on a ballistic calculator, at what point does the very poor BC'd projectile go trans-sonic????

Every good accuracy shooter should know that you lose WAY too much accuracy once this happens, many of the popular LR slugs do this before reaching 75-100 yards, even my SBE with a fully rifled barrel shooting 1900fps sabots, loses 100% reliability of hitting a 12" target beyond 150yds(iron sights), and yet my 50 alaskan shooting a poorer BC'd bullet than the 12ga sabot, retains 100% hit reliability at 150yds????????? Both going the same speed, both the same "caliber", both the same sighting system, and both the same shooter??????????????

lets just face the truth, the slugs we shoot for competition, in the guns we use, are really 75yd guns, if we truly want 100% hit reliability on the decent sized targets that we previously mentioned, regardless of how GOOD the trigger puller is!!!!!!

trapr

[shooterrdy]

Been working more on slug hits I still think that 75yd is about as far as any 3 gun match should be set, the Black steel poppers at Midwest 3 Gun were around 50yd or so and I got hits on them then missed the easy large black square targets found out later that the barrel clamp on my M2 was causing the trouble (dumped that thing went back to 10 rnd tube). had same size popper in OK at 90 yd this spring and that was a poke

I cant agree more with Mr. Kelly in the fact that I brought my Rifle for a reason.

75yd for slugs is Plenty.