Deer with slugs?

I have shot dozens of deer with a shotgun and slugs after they have been struck by vehicles and were lying in the ditch suffering. Often they would have crawled out into the field next to the road by the time I arrived. I would regularly shoot them from the edge of the road out into the field up to 50-60 yards quite regularly. Headshots are the norm, and the old Imperial 7/8 oz special long range issued loads were amazing. I don't know how fast they were moving, but they hit with much more authority than the low recoil slugs we are currently issued. With the Imperials, it was easy to brain them at that range and they were DOA.

With a good slug like Challengers, and with plenty of practice and open sights, I would stretch it to 100 yards max. That would be my personal limit with an 18.5" gun. 50 yards would be much more realistic and comfortable for me with that rig. I would stay completely away from anything that says "low recoil" on the box as they are accurate, but completely underpowered. In fact, put one in your left hand and then throw it as hard as you can and you probably have then exceeded "low recoil" ballistics.
 
With shotguns you need to try lots of different slugs as a gun will prefer a certain load and scatter other ones all around in a "pattern". Two that are worth trying are the challenger slug and the federal tru ball load. Try a few others of your choice and go from there.
Where i hunt deer is shotguns or muzzleloaders. Being a rifle nut and trying to make a shotgun print tiny groups like a rifle drove me nuts so I switched to in line muzzle loader. As I recall I got 2 or 3 inch groups at 50 yards with my winchester 1300 smooth bore with rifled choke tubes. At 100 yards it opened up quite a bit.. can't remember how much but enough it bothered me.
 


Best I can do with Ithaca Deerslayer and factory irons with foster slugs @100 yards from a rest. First shot was very high and I adjusted the elevator. (smoothbore 12 gauge)

The circled group to the left was when the action bolt came loose from the receiver and I stopped shooting to ID and fix the problem.
 
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I just wanted to chime in here, I have an 870 express with a 20 inch Remington 'deer' barrel, it's got an improved cylinder and decent rifle sights. With Remington 2 3/4 Foster slugs (green hulls) I was able to make a 3 inch group at 25, 50, 75, and 100 yards. At 100 yards I tried a few more times and was able to consistently make 3-6 inch groups, but every shorter distance i tried 3 inch groups was pretty normal. After 75 yards the drop is so immense, like 6 inches, I had to pretty much aim at the top of the target I was shooting at, and decided if I was going to take that shot at a deer, I'd be aiming at head/neck level at the front center mass of the animal.

The other nice thing about this barrel is that you can shoot target or field loads at the same point of aim, the rifle sights don't need to be adjusted. The bad part is the barrel costs like $180 bucks now at WSS, I bought it for $100 just a few years back. The patterns were decent, even with buckshot. It's obviously not as good as the full choke on the 28 inch vented rib barrel, but if you're going for deer or grouse or ducks this (in my opinion) is a super versatile hunting platform.

The only downside to this setup is you have to oil the shotgun well, and make sure clean it no later than the next morning or you'll get brown patches. I was also advised that hunting ducks with lead shot (for grouse) in your possession might be illegal, so I only carry steel shot and slugs now. In BC you still have to plug the barrel to 2+1 if you have any kind of 'shot' in your possession, but if you're just going for deer with slugs, you can unplug it. Now I just take #6 Steel for grouse, #4 for ducks, and some slugs.

I pretty much have a trail I walk that passes a few small ponds, some upland territory, and slashes. You could come across anything, so far I'm averaging at least one grouse a trip. I've seen deer in the summer when I'm just out for a walk, but haven't managed to bag one during open season. It's also cool that the trail is on a wildlife management unit border, so once I walk 30 minutes I'm legally allowed to shoot for doe, packing it back to the truck will suck tho lol
 
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