Is a riffled slug barrel a necessity when hunting deer with slugs?

Papaclaude said:
Absolutely not necessary. I have a Browning BPS which will consistently make a ragged one-hole group (5 shots) at 50 yds. with Champion slugs.
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Not nessecary as stated. I hunted for years with smoothbore with a bead, but have slowly made my setup better. I've gone from smoothbore to rifled barrel, rifled slugs (which have fliers) to sabots, from bead to williams sights to scope. All have improved my deer hunts.

My browing BPS has a cantaliever riflied barrel with a 1-5 scope. I have no issues with good groups out to 200 yards. The key is to find a shotgun that fits you, you are comfortable carrying, and you pratice shooting. Also you have to find what slugs shoot best from your gun. Not your brand of gun, your gun. Everything has to line up with how you shoot.

I missed the biggest buck at 30 yards. I only had one shot and completely missed. I stood there for a long time trying to figure out how I missed. I was shooting a beaded smoothbore at the time. I figure it was buck fever, and the gun not in my shoulder correctly.
 
Hussar_ca said:
Not nessecary as stated. I hunted for years with smoothbore with a bead, but have slowly made my setup better. I've gone from smoothbore to rifled barrel, rifled slugs (which have fliers) to sabots, from bead to williams sights to scope. All have improved my deer hunts.

My browing BPS has a cantaliever riflied barrel with a 1-5 scope. I have no issues with good groups out to 200 yards. The key is to find a shotgun that fits you, you are comfortable carrying, and you pratice shooting. Also you have to find what slugs shoot best from your gun. Not your brand of gun, your gun. Everything has to line up with how you shoot.

I missed the biggest buck at 30 yards. I only had one shot and completely missed. I stood there for a long time trying to figure out how I missed. I was shooting a beaded smoothbore at the time. I figure it was buck fever, and the gun not in my shoulder correctly.
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I also have an 870 with a rifled barrel for it. However, my comment was more that it is not necessary. I guess what also helps in my case is that my BPS (and 870) is a turkey gun, and comes with Hi-Viz rifle sights. What I really like about the smoothbore barrel is that I can shoot the cheap slugs to play around with, vs. sabots at about $3-4 per shot. At some point, I would like to get a Savage bolt rifled gun, but that's for later. I have a few more pressing toys to buy first.
 
I picked up a Mossberg 20g combo a few years back from Froniter Firearms. It came with vent rib bird bbl & fully rifled ported deer bbl with open sights. With the Challenger slugs she is dead accurate at 50yds and I would'nt hesitate to shoot game out to 100yds, Even better with remington "Copper Solids" but they ain't cheap neither as compared to the Challengers. I would hit your nearest gun shop (Bass Pro in Vaughn) and check out there decent selection of after market RCT (rifled choke tube) and fiber optic sights. Then go to the range and practice practice practice!! Try different slugs too. I found that with a Winchester 1oz "Foster" slug will group under 5" @75yds from my Winchester 1200 12g with Carlson RTC. That's with a stock brass bead too. But believe me I practiced lots!!
Good Luck!
 
Your sighting system is WAYY more important than your bore. I had an ithica M37 that would print 12" "groups" with any slug at 50m off a bench because i couldn't see past the damn bead.
However recently i picked up a Stevens 350 (M37 clone) with traditional rifle sights on an 18" barrel (not the ghost ring model), and this thing keeps them around 2" at 60m using just the irons. Even out to 100m i can keep 'em all on a sheet of 8.5"x11" easily.
 
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