A few years ago, I put together a "Jersey Rifle". What's a Jersey Rifle? Well, here in New Jersey, it is illegal to hunt deer with a centerfire rifle. Traditional rifled shotgun slugs are not that accurate. So how do you get rifle-like performance out of a shotgun? Simple - you shoot a slug out of a rifled barrel.
OK, everyone knows that right? Well there are lots of ways to make this happen, and lots of companies that make shotguns with rifled barrels. Here's what I did:
I already had a Mossberg 835 Ulti-Mag. I'd bought it a long time ago for goose hunting with steel shot. I bought the fully rifled barrel for it with the cantilever scope mount. I was shooting Lightfield Express sabots, and couldn't get the gun to group consistently. There were several reasons for this - one was that the stock was too long - the gun was not meant to be shot like a rifle. Another reason was the trigger - it has a super heavy pull, and is not really adjustable. The final deal killer was the recoil. WOW it kicked so hard it was almost unbearable. It was actually painful to shoot, which resulted in flinching and target panic.
So plan B: I went out and bought a used Remington 1100 12 gauge autoloader with a 2-3/4" chamber. I then bought a Hastings® 12 GA. Extended scope mount fully rifled barrel with the CSD muzzle brake. I topped the barrel with a Simmons Aetec 2.8-10x44mm scope. I chose the scope because it had a relatively long eye relief, but the LOP was still too long. at 14-1/2" the stock was just too long to handle the shotgun like a rifle.
Not only that, the poor fit and hard buttplate knocked the hell out of me with each trigger pull, and I just could not get the gun to shoot a group under 4-5 inches at 100 yards. So I took the gun to a gunsmith who cut the stock to a 13-1/4" LOP and installed a recoil pad.
I switched to Winchester Supreme Partition Gold sabot slugs too. My groups shrunk to around 2 inches at 100 yards. I have on occasion shot groups under 1" at 100 yards.
Now maybe you're thinking what I was thinking when I put this gun together: gas operated autoloader with a muzzle brake? This thing's gonna kick like a 20 gauge! WRONG! It kicks harder than my 30-06. So why don't I like to shoot or hunt with this gun?
First off, it's the money. A box of 5 of the Winchester's costs around $16.50. That means that every time i pull the trigger, I'm sending a Grande Latte down range at 1900 fps. I see guys at the range capping off 40, 50, or more rounds to "sight in" their gun. I do all right, but that's just crazy cash to be spending on a hole in a piece of paper. The next thing is the gun kicks hard. Really hard. Another professor to teach target panic to be sure. The 10 pound trigger pull just does not lend itself to accurate shooting, and I haven't gotten around to working on lightening it yet. But the real killer is the weight. The gun feels like it is about 9-10 pounds. I don't want to carry that kind of tonnage around the woods all day.
So, as I said before, I just use my Encore. I haven't needed more that one shot to kill a deer with it yet.
2 comments:
There are a couple of other ways you can reduce the recoil. One is to use a hydraulic recoil reducer. This installs in place of a recoil pad. Hubby has one in his Winchester 101. Another way is by using either a mechanical or mercury filled recoil reducer. He has one of these too in the 101. Mind you, he's not shooting slugs out of the gun, but 1 1/8 oz. trap loads with red dot as the powder. Recoil can be an issue, especially when you are shooting 200+ rounds.
Another thing which can affect felt recoil is the pitch of the gun. Pitch can be guestimated by placing the gun against a verticle wall. With the butt sitting on the ground, the pitch is that distance between the muzzle & the wall. The greater the distance, the more felt recoil. I have a BT-99, which when purchased, had more than 4" of pitch. It was very painful to shoot. We corrected the pitch by inserting a wedge shaped spacer made of nylon. Now, when the butt is flat on the floor, the muzzle is on the wall. Very little in the way of felt recoil.
Jato791 makes some very good points - I would like to add that the recoil is noticeably greater with sabot slugs than it is with regular shot through a smooth bore barrel.
Add on the prices that sabot slugs have gone up to - I've seen them at over $20 for five rounds - and I'm sticking with the muzzle loader!
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