Well Saturday was our last day of shotgun season here in Ma. I hunted all archery season but failed to connect. Anyway this doe came into range at 7:15am and gave me a chance to finally put some meat in the freezer. Black powder starts today so I'm still hopeful that I will see the giant buck I saw during archery but couldn't get a shot at.
Congrats! I've seen nothing but does hunting this year so far. Now that blackpowder season is here the does are up for the taking!
Congrats on the doe. I do not hunt horns if they come by I take them but I put 4-5 in the freezer for the family each year. Between here in Mass. and R. I. It's not that hard to do as I hunt everyday of the season unless the wind or weather is wrong. Good luck with the black powder I am back to crossbow for the rest of the season.
Mmm groceries! How's the performance of slugs on deer? I've never tried them. What kind of distance until you say no way is this happening?
sabot slugs in a riffled barrel with scope I have no problem out to 100 yards. I have never tried beyond that. this doe was shot at 75 yards.
Until this year I've always used 1 oz rifled slugs out of a 12 ga. I've never had a deer take a single step. Of course shot placement is still important and while they still pattern pretty good at 75 yards personally I'd never take a shot past 50 yards with one. I know a guy that thought a head shop was a good idea with a slug, he blew of the deer's nose. Tons of blood everywhere but he lost the trail and never found the deer, I'm sure it died in a lot of pain. I know another guy that shot one from behind in the butt with a 1 oz slug. He never found it either.
That's all we can use in Mass for deer. I use a 20 gage rifled barrel and sabot slugs. At 100 yards it groups as good as my rifle. In all honesty though, I used to use a 12 gage smoothbore. I had to play around with various slugs to find the ones that performed best, but that gun performed just as well. I'm not 100% convinced that a rifled barrel and a sabot slug is a necessity....
When I used to hunt and my pops still had the hunting camp in NY all we could use was shot gun too . They were smooth bore back then the slugs were rifled . These are 2 Ithaca Deer Slayer's in 12 gag, and 20 gag. My pops got the extra barrel for the 20 for shot shooting small game like having 2 guns in one these are both circa 1970 . We killed a lot of deer with those 2 guns .
I agree. This is my first deer taken with a riffled barrel and scope. I have always used smooth bore and open sights until now and have never lost a deer that I shot at with it. I just bought this gun 2 weeks ago and will say that I really do like the scope as I almost always hunt from a stand.
I had to use slugs here in NY until 10-12 years ago. I used an Ithaca and later a Remington 11-87 rifled barrel. They worked well but I hated the recoil-gave me a flinch that I still have to battle. So glad we can use rifles now.
Couple of classic beauties right there! I remember being a kid looking at the old F&S magazines and wanting a Deer Slayer in the worst way!
Depending on its build date, some if holding the trigger will fire with every pump, almost an out of battery fire. Technically illegal...Serial will tell. My deer Slayer is a cool gun but just sits. BUT it's still one of those guns I wouldn't mind having multiples of!
