I haven't hunted game so far, just focusing on shooting for fun and developing skills and a bit of pest control on grey squirrels and rats. Competing in 10m air pistol (quit due to a shoulder injury) I was scoring an average over 90% in competitions, several times scoring 553/600 or a bit over 92%. Not quite 'master' status but no slouch at keeping shots inside the 9 ring. In casual airgun field target my shooting was similarly decent, and now using firearms in .22lr and 9mm, my target work is at about the same level, just at greater ranges. So it seems the platform isn't relevant, I shoot accurately enough that a target the size of a deer's heart at 50 yards seems trivially easy. But what I'm wondering is regarding the overall viability of 9mm for deer hunting.
Looking at the numbers I don't see a problem, especially comparing to buckshot. Shotgun deer hunting isn't just 'a thing' but is actually the law in some regions (for reasons I can't begin to imagine, outside situations with poor/unsafe backstops, in which case why is anyone hunting there in the first place?), something I'll no doubt learn about as I study the rules more carefully. Using low recoil 12ga stuff like Brobee demonstrates in his videos, each pellet is hitting the deer at his stated effective range of about 30 yards with around 150fpe - an energy level comparable to many big bore airguns available today. Brobee's latest video showing several complete traversals of the thorax at 55 yards with similar or even lower energy resulted in a deer taking what seems to be over 20 seconds to fall. He edits the sequence at about 14 seconds, jumping to a bit later for the next cut which shows the deer already laying down in the distance. In butchering this latest deer he dwells on his 'luck' in dropping the deer 'cleanly' though he was aiming at the heart and didn't hit it. So she drowned/suffocated due to lung and diaphram damage. As I've read accounts of many deer hunts this seems a common goal, and Brobee's result would be considered a desirable outcome. I'm puzzled by this. Even he concludes that he would have preferred a more square-on hit in her 'boiler room.'
A 147gr 9mm bullet such as Winchester JHP leaving the muzzle of my TNW ASR at about the same velocity still carries about 410fpe at 30 yards, about 2.5x the impact of any one 59gr shotgun pellet at that range. At 55 yards hits with about 380fpe - still more than double the energy of any of those shotgun pellets. From an energy perspective 9mm seems to offer a massive advantage over buckshot at anywhere beyond about 20 yards where patterns open up, especially with 8 or 9 pellets from a short barrelled shotgun. Of course it's equally obvious that if 2 or 3 pellets happen to go through something important the combined energy, coupled with the increased trauma from several wounds versus a single wound channel, the result will be the desired one... even if it takes the deer half a minute to realise it has been killed and then lie down.
My opinion is that reliance upon luck when hunting any game is unacceptable. Having to consistently chamber a slug after taking a 'hail Mary' shot with buckshot and sometimes using that slug to finish the job (as Brobee edits out but indicates was necessary in one earlier video) strikes me as a less than completely ethical approach. Surely the reliable accuracy of a well aimed 9mm projectile is preferable, hitting at double or even triple (at closer range such as 30 yards) the energy compared to those times when only 1 much weaker buckshot pellet happens to get through the lung/heart area. Yet I've had a number of people in different forums dismiss such reasoning.
I have no experience hunting anything larger than a squirrel, so my opinion lacks substantive proof. But there's the thing. I don't want to have to prove or disprove the theory in the field, on a deer, I want to be sure my take on this is correct before committing to such a shot. Hence my asking here, among guys who have taken deer with what seems an obviously less powerful, less precise tool. Not questioning the viability of a shotgun and buckshot load at closer range, inside 20 yards or so where it's obviously superior, before pattern entropy has taken its toll and the ballistic inferiority of round ball projectiles has scrubbed away a lot of velocity.
Here's a video Paul Harrell made a few years ago, fairly exhaustively, even tediously demonstrating results with various buckshot sizes and barrel choke conditions over various distances:
His patterns from a standard length shotgun at 30 yards seem to my eyes far, far too spread out to bring much confidence hunting a deer. Patterns similar to what Brobee demonstrates in his very nicely made videos, both on paper and in deer. My main conclusion from watching this video was that if choosing a 12ga and buckshot, I'd want a choke, lots of practice patterning it on paper, and an actual maximum range no greater than 25 yards. Beyond that it's either a slug or no shot taken. If going to a short barrel or not using a choke, I'd bring that in to 20 yards. The randomness of buckshot even with a choke seems uninspiring as a hunting tool for deer. Looks to me far more viable to save the shotgun for waterfowl, grouse, quail, maybe squirrels at close range (though in my experience squirrels drop 100% of the time with a pellet hit in a less than dime-sized area directly between eye and ear hole from either side, anywhere else is unreliable, so precision on squirrels is imperative), or for home defense in case of zombies (or home invaders, but hey, that never happens right?).
Seems to me that if one can consistently shoot 2" groups at 50 yards, hunting deer with a 9mm carbine is perfectly reasonable at similar distances. What am I missing? A shotgun with 00 or smaller buckshot seems to deliver the equivalent of engaging in 'spray and pray' tactics with a .22lr, perhaps hitting something important with 1 or more bullets, perhaps not. Of course the shotgun is spraying these projectiles all at once, but it's still putting a lot of responsibility on the praying part, and the patterns I'm seeing with 8 or 9 pellet loads are frankly laughable compared to my worst day with a pistol at that distance, never mind a rifle.
Anyone care to jump in with some wisdom on how this comparison is either legitimate or full of holes, as it were? Preferably without dumping too much abuse on me - I haven't gone deer hunting with anything yet, and could well end up with a .44Mag lever or something else for the job before I get around to challenging the CORE anyway so perhaps the question is moot. But I'd prefer to use my ASR, just enjoy shooting the thing, so hoping for some answers one way or the other. My overall sense is that a lot of hunters are such awful shots that something like a shotgun seems an improvement over outright missing with a single projectile - that's just outright strange to me, as I'd rather take my finger away from the trigger than risk missing an animal I'm hunting.
Looking at the numbers I don't see a problem, especially comparing to buckshot. Shotgun deer hunting isn't just 'a thing' but is actually the law in some regions (for reasons I can't begin to imagine, outside situations with poor/unsafe backstops, in which case why is anyone hunting there in the first place?), something I'll no doubt learn about as I study the rules more carefully. Using low recoil 12ga stuff like Brobee demonstrates in his videos, each pellet is hitting the deer at his stated effective range of about 30 yards with around 150fpe - an energy level comparable to many big bore airguns available today. Brobee's latest video showing several complete traversals of the thorax at 55 yards with similar or even lower energy resulted in a deer taking what seems to be over 20 seconds to fall. He edits the sequence at about 14 seconds, jumping to a bit later for the next cut which shows the deer already laying down in the distance. In butchering this latest deer he dwells on his 'luck' in dropping the deer 'cleanly' though he was aiming at the heart and didn't hit it. So she drowned/suffocated due to lung and diaphram damage. As I've read accounts of many deer hunts this seems a common goal, and Brobee's result would be considered a desirable outcome. I'm puzzled by this. Even he concludes that he would have preferred a more square-on hit in her 'boiler room.'
A 147gr 9mm bullet such as Winchester JHP leaving the muzzle of my TNW ASR at about the same velocity still carries about 410fpe at 30 yards, about 2.5x the impact of any one 59gr shotgun pellet at that range. At 55 yards hits with about 380fpe - still more than double the energy of any of those shotgun pellets. From an energy perspective 9mm seems to offer a massive advantage over buckshot at anywhere beyond about 20 yards where patterns open up, especially with 8 or 9 pellets from a short barrelled shotgun. Of course it's equally obvious that if 2 or 3 pellets happen to go through something important the combined energy, coupled with the increased trauma from several wounds versus a single wound channel, the result will be the desired one... even if it takes the deer half a minute to realise it has been killed and then lie down.
My opinion is that reliance upon luck when hunting any game is unacceptable. Having to consistently chamber a slug after taking a 'hail Mary' shot with buckshot and sometimes using that slug to finish the job (as Brobee edits out but indicates was necessary in one earlier video) strikes me as a less than completely ethical approach. Surely the reliable accuracy of a well aimed 9mm projectile is preferable, hitting at double or even triple (at closer range such as 30 yards) the energy compared to those times when only 1 much weaker buckshot pellet happens to get through the lung/heart area. Yet I've had a number of people in different forums dismiss such reasoning.
I have no experience hunting anything larger than a squirrel, so my opinion lacks substantive proof. But there's the thing. I don't want to have to prove or disprove the theory in the field, on a deer, I want to be sure my take on this is correct before committing to such a shot. Hence my asking here, among guys who have taken deer with what seems an obviously less powerful, less precise tool. Not questioning the viability of a shotgun and buckshot load at closer range, inside 20 yards or so where it's obviously superior, before pattern entropy has taken its toll and the ballistic inferiority of round ball projectiles has scrubbed away a lot of velocity.
Here's a video Paul Harrell made a few years ago, fairly exhaustively, even tediously demonstrating results with various buckshot sizes and barrel choke conditions over various distances:
His patterns from a standard length shotgun at 30 yards seem to my eyes far, far too spread out to bring much confidence hunting a deer. Patterns similar to what Brobee demonstrates in his very nicely made videos, both on paper and in deer. My main conclusion from watching this video was that if choosing a 12ga and buckshot, I'd want a choke, lots of practice patterning it on paper, and an actual maximum range no greater than 25 yards. Beyond that it's either a slug or no shot taken. If going to a short barrel or not using a choke, I'd bring that in to 20 yards. The randomness of buckshot even with a choke seems uninspiring as a hunting tool for deer. Looks to me far more viable to save the shotgun for waterfowl, grouse, quail, maybe squirrels at close range (though in my experience squirrels drop 100% of the time with a pellet hit in a less than dime-sized area directly between eye and ear hole from either side, anywhere else is unreliable, so precision on squirrels is imperative), or for home defense in case of zombies (or home invaders, but hey, that never happens right?).
Seems to me that if one can consistently shoot 2" groups at 50 yards, hunting deer with a 9mm carbine is perfectly reasonable at similar distances. What am I missing? A shotgun with 00 or smaller buckshot seems to deliver the equivalent of engaging in 'spray and pray' tactics with a .22lr, perhaps hitting something important with 1 or more bullets, perhaps not. Of course the shotgun is spraying these projectiles all at once, but it's still putting a lot of responsibility on the praying part, and the patterns I'm seeing with 8 or 9 pellet loads are frankly laughable compared to my worst day with a pistol at that distance, never mind a rifle.
Anyone care to jump in with some wisdom on how this comparison is either legitimate or full of holes, as it were? Preferably without dumping too much abuse on me - I haven't gone deer hunting with anything yet, and could well end up with a .44Mag lever or something else for the job before I get around to challenging the CORE anyway so perhaps the question is moot. But I'd prefer to use my ASR, just enjoy shooting the thing, so hoping for some answers one way or the other. My overall sense is that a lot of hunters are such awful shots that something like a shotgun seems an improvement over outright missing with a single projectile - that's just outright strange to me, as I'd rather take my finger away from the trigger than risk missing an animal I'm hunting.
