20ga for deer/bear

6.5x55swm

6.5x55swm

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I just got a Mossberg 500 in 20ga, it has a smooth bore barrel, rifled barrel and a turkey barrel, just wondering if anybody uses a 20ga rifled barrel for deer or bear, shotgun is very light and would a joy to carry. I seen a video on youtube of some hunters taking deer at 300yds with a savage 220. I am thinking this would be a 200yds deer gun, maybe 250, what do ya think?
 
Friend of mine has the same shotgun. He uses the smoothbore 26 " barrel for deer with Challenger slugs in southern Ontario controlled hunt and has had no problems. He tells me he hasn't been able to find the right sabot slug to give him any kind of accuracy from the rifled barrel. He has taken a number of deer so i guess his combination works for him.l
 
6.5x55swm said:
I seen a video on youtube of some hunters taking deer at 300yds with a savage 220. I am thinking this would be a 200yds deer gun, maybe 250, what do ya think?
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You need to shoot at those distances. When you reach the point where you can't keep all your shots on a paper plate, that's your maximum range, regardless of what youtube says.
 
Personally I would be very surprised if a person could keep a 20 gauge reliably hitting a sheet of plywood much past 150 yards. A long time ago I played with my Savage 24C with slugs and anything past 70 yards it became a shotgun again...all over the target. But...what do I know??
Dave
 
6.5x55swm said:
I just got a Mossberg 500 in 20ga, it has a smooth bore barrel, rifled barrel and a turkey barrel, just wondering if anybody uses a 20ga rifled barrel for deer or bear, shotgun is very light and would a joy to carry. I seen a video on youtube of some hunters taking deer at 300yds with a savage 220. I am thinking this would be a 200yds deer gun, maybe 250, what do ya think?
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It might be capable of stretching things to 200 or a bit further but you may have spent more in ammo looking for that load than a decent rifle and scope would be. You live in NB, according to your location, so we don't have any shotgun only areas or seasons and slugs have the same restrictions as centerfire rifles unless things have changed since last fall. I have a hard time justifying that much expense on finding a slug load that will let me stretch things that far.
 
Give your head a shake and check a few ballistic charts. Like any shotgun, it isn't intended to provide the accuracy or trajectory of a rifle. Your ability to ethically place a killing shot consistently from a field position, probably offhand will be your limit. If you can somehow get your gun to produce consistent five ( yes, 5) shot groups at 100 yards of 4 inches or less from a rest you can consider yourself lucky. Offhand with adrenalin flowing, triple the size of that group and you are at your limit. If you can't reliably place all of your shots from a standing unsupported position on a basketball sized target you are beyond the limit of an ethical hunter, be it 30 yards or 300 yards. Even at 100 yards a shotgun has 4-5 inches of drop and it falls like a rock beyond that, making a holdover necessary and nearly impossible to calculate that distance and adjust holdover at 150 yards and beyond. Rifles are long range firearms, shotguns are limited to shorter ranges than rifles. If you are limited by regulations to shotgun only you will need to limit your shots to a shotgun's ability, don't expect it to do the job of a rifle.
 
Buy some paper plates. 9" dinner plates for $5.64 per 100 on Amazon.ca. Set them out at various distances. This is your deer, moose, elk hunting test with whatever you are using - muzzleloader, shotgun slug, rifle. Take one shot, using the position you would be in while hunting - you are not likely going to be seated at a shooting table with sandbags. Is there a hole in the plate - doesn't really matter where on the plate - Yes or No - you very seldom get "sighting in" shots for real. At the distance where there is no hole, that is further than you should be shooting at game, with your current skill and that particular gear. Doesn't matter what the Internet said about your gun, your scope or your cartridges - you just showed yourself what your limit is.
 
Potashminer said:
Buy some paper plates. 9" dinner plates for $5.64 per 100 on Amazon.ca. Set them out at various distances. This is your deer, moose, elk hunting test with whatever you are using - muzzleloader, shotgun slug, rifle. Take one shot, using the position you would be in while hunting - you are not likely going to be seated at a shooting table with sandbags. Is there a hole in the plate - doesn't really matter where on the plate - Yes or No - you very seldom get "sighting in" shots for real. At the distance where there is no hole, that is further than you should be shooting at game, with your current skill and that particular gear. Doesn't matter what the Internet said about your gun, your scope or your cartridges - you just showed yourself what your limit is.
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And be sure to pick up any shards or broken bits!
 
that's the video I was talking about, I know they are shooting off a bench, I wouldn't take a shot at game at that distance with a shotgun, I will be just using rifle sights away in the woods
 
It's quite possible that you can find a brand of sabots that will shoot 2-3 moa in your barrel. If you don't plan to scope the gun, the rifle sights and your eyes will be the limiting factor. Practice on a pie plate as others have suggested. I expect with good eyes you'll be good to 100-125 yds. Beyond that the sight covers too much of the deer to be accurate.
 
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