There's something here I'm just not "getting"... please forgive me and be patient in my education!
Previous comments in this thread talk about the recoil of slug guns, even 20ga slug guns, as being punishing, on par with that of dangerous game centrefire magnum rifles.
I have a Mossberg 500 slug gun (rifled barrel) and it beats the cr@p out of me - so much so that I won't shoot the darned thing and have kept it only for use as a turkey gun (until I buy a better turkey gun).
Last year I bought an Ithaca Deerslayer pump slug gun in 20ga. It's topped with a Leupold VX2 2-7 scope. I've wanted one of these for years and a local dealer unearthed a pair of them that had been sitting long-forgotten in his stock room, so he was clearing them out at a good price. When I walked into the shop and saw he had not one but two of them in 20ga I was tempted to buy both of them. I exercised restraint and came home with only one of them and a shopping bag full of 20ga slugs.
In this part of the country a 50 yard shot is a long shot. With this in mind I bought Remington Sluggers, both the standard 5/8 ounce and "Low Recoil" 1/2 ounce versions. They are more than enough medicine for deer.
Off to the quarry I went for a sighting-in session. My experience with the Mossberg told me this would be a short session with necessarily few shots fired... Man was I WRONG!
I sighted the slug gun by firing it from a prone position, shooting off my elbows. Those who have tried it will recognize this as one of the most punishing positions in terms of transfer of recoil energy to the shooter's body. After firing 27 slugs I realized I had better stop as I was burning through ammo at a rate that outpaced my financial means. That's right, 27 rounds and I wanted to shoot more.
The Deerslayer is an absolute pussycat to shoot. I've never heard anybody say that shooting a slug gun was pleasant so I may be the first to ever apply that term to a slug gun. I stopped shooting because I was burning up ammo and needed to save some for the hunt. I had a great big grin on my face and was having a ton of fun. First I sighted the gun in, then I shot 3-shot groups, then a couple of 5-shot groups. Oh, it's accurate - in both of the 5-shot groups at least one slug was missing from the group, having punched through the hole of one of its predecessors, leaving a four-leafed clover on the paper.
Ithaca optimized the Deerslayer for the slug gun application. Its stock design is excellent with a comb that slopes downward toward the muzzle, effectively dropping the stock out from under the shooter's cheek as the gun recoils. The trigger is plenty good enough for the task at hand.
So please tell me... what am I missing? Is the Ithaca Model 37 Deerslayer the only slug gun that's actually fun to shoot? I had hoped some of the more modern single shot slug guns and of course the Savage 220 would have been designed to tame recoil. Surely they aren't THAT bad, are they?
Does this mean I now officially belong to the big-bore club !? 
