Shooting Slugs

[Deltadude]

Hello,

When shooting slugs, does it matter how long or short the barrel is going to be?

For instance a 18" vs. 24" barrel? I intend to use the slug gun(Benelli Supernova Slug gun) to hunt pigs.

thanks all.

[mif_slim]

velocity maybe, but I just got back from shooting slugs at the range from m 20" and man, it packs a punch at 50 yards! You can see a white ball of lead dust when it hits the gongs! Pretty exciting.

[professionalcoyotehunter]

You would loose accuracy for sure.

[Deltadude]

You would loose accuracy for sure.

With shorter or longer barrel?

[professionalcoyotehunter]

With shorter of course. Are you going to use a rifled or smooth barrel?

[Dirtbiker]

If you are buying a shotgun for slug use only I say buy a rifled barrel. They are quite accurate to 100 yards and pack a huge punch. (1oz or more)

Here is a good comparison for you to read http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot46.htm

[professionalcoyotehunter]

With the SST's you can push out to 200 yards.

[mydogsmonkey]

how about this?
i got an 18" barrel remington 870 with tactical choke and hit a steel plate at 100 yards first try. i don't think it matters that much, just shoot it from what you have unless you're actually going to try for gorups or something, in that case just get a real slug gun

ETA- it was a smooth barrel and winchester rifled slug

[Nightmare]

With modern propellants these days most shotshells reach full velocity at 20". Longer barrel shotguns are meant more for balance for the shooter. It comes to what your preference is as well.
With a quality rifled barrel and quality sabot slugs, you pretty much change your shotgun into a 45/70 in essence. You have a fairly large slug moving at a moderate velocity, trajectory and accuracy is adequate up until 200 yards and it has a large amount of momentum. If you're using a smoothbore with rifled slugs, take a look at the Federal Truball slugs. They're rather accurate however given the mass and design of the slug you're looking at a 100 yard combination. The rifled slug was designed to move in a manner of say, a shuttle cock from a game of badminton, except at a much higher velocity.
About what size of boars are you looking to hunt? For the smaller boars, a smoothbore / rifled slug combination should suffice, as well as a rifled bore / sabot slug. For a larger boar, I would recommend a rifled bore, and take a look at either Brenneke slugs or a tough sabot slug like the Remington copper slugs. You're going to have to penetrate the muscle, bone and gristle of these animals and that itself is asking a lot from many bullet designs.
By the way, had a brainfart, Brenneke slugs will be adequate from a smoothbore shotgun. They're cast using a different design and a harder alloy than most standard Foster / rifled slugs.
Hope this helps.

[Deltadude]

With shorter of course. Are you going to use a rifled or smooth barrel?

Rifled barrel, 24" is my path.

[professionalcoyotehunter]

That would be a great path to choose.

[mif_slim]

I dont think accuracy would suffer much. Box-o-Truth touched up on that and proved it. The defender shotgun with short barrel shot better groups then the full length shotgun barrel. But, each barrel likes diffrent loads, so the most important part is to find the one your barrel likes and stick to it.

[rromeo]

Thanks. This was on my mind lately as well.
I have an 18" barrel, so a 24" looks to be my next purchase.

[mif_slim]

my 20" barrel grouped pretty well at 40 yards. I think it did a 2.5~3" group from outside-to-outside measurements.

[DaveFJ80]

I can easily hit a target at 100 yards out on my 18.5" SuperNova tactical with a slug. I've been able to group them really tight witin 2-4" apart from 70 yards out and using the stock GRS.