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A Buck and Slug test:

Standard media and range, that is, a piece of 1/2 CDX plywood followed by a 1 gallon US milk jug, repeated. Range 20 meters.

Here goes:

Shot #1: Winchester 12 gauge, 2 3/4 inch 1 ounce rifled slug. Full penetration 3 boards, 2 jugs. Slug and wad found in 3rd jug.

Shot #2: Federal 12 gauge, 2 3/4 inch 1 ounce rifled slug. Chronographed velocity, 1514 fps. Full penetration 3 boards, 2 jugs. Found in 3rd jug, dented 4th board.

As you can see in the picture, the slugs expanded. Rupture of the first two jugs was severe, quite similar in my subjective opinion to that caused by higher velocity rifle rounds. There is no arguing that a 12 bore slug pokes a sizable hole regardless of expansion.

Shot #3: Eley Alphamax 12 gauge SSG Buckshot. One pellet struck the media. Full penetration 1 board, 1 jug. Found in 2nd board. I lucked out here as only the one pellet hit the jugs so I got a good idea of the capabilities of one pellet vs. what might have been confusing results had several struck. Of course, this doesn't say much about the likelihood of multiple pellets striking a killzone of milk jug size...

Also, since we all know each shot with buckshot is a stroll down a different street, the performance of another shot might be different, tho I'd be surprised to find pellets penetrating much differently than this one.

The gun is my old reliable Ithaca M87 with the 20" smoothbore slug barrel installed. Admittedly, it is worn and beatup now, and I recently restocked it with a aftermarket job from Numrich Arms after the old stock split. A while back, I tossed the semi-luminous "barleycorn"-type front sight and made a square blade front sight from a piece of key stock. In order to zero the gun I made a new elevator for the rear sight from a piece of millsaw blade and I recut the rear sight notch to my favorite, wide square notch.

This gun has always turned in excellent groups with slugs. Bore mikes .712 and I've polished it with steel wool, and a gizmo I rigged up with my drill press that spun a dowel wrapped with wet-dry sandpaper and buffing compound.

The following is a 3-shot group shot from sitting on the tire with elbows rested on knees, no bench, at 100 meters. Shot on my "Mythical Critter" target with no aiming point {Carideerelk? I don't know, I'm a lousy painter...

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