Good afternoon:

My son and I are entered into a lottery to have an opportunity to hunt feral hog, whitetail deer, and nilgai antelope this winter. Per the rules, the only firearms allowed for use in the hunt are shotguns with slugs or muzzleloading rifles.

I know next to nothing about muzzleloaders, and an online search shows I can get a rifled slug barrel for my Mossberg 500 with a mounted 3x9 scope for $160.00 - $240.00. I think the maximum effective range for this set up would be around 100 yards. The hunting area is in the Rio Grande valley area of Texas near McAllen, TX - which I think is pretty dense and brushy, so 100 yards should be sufficient range.

So, fellow Forum members, what say you? Your guidance and advice is greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Dave

I think that if a follow-up shot is needed, the shot gun is the way to go.

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On the Oak Savannah

No personal experience, but have read that Shotgun Sabot slugs are effective to 200 yards.

Rifled Sabot Slugs: Power, Distance and Accuracy | Field & Stream

I think the slug gun would be a ideal way to go in the South Texas brush.

Unless you are good at climbing trees, you don't want to be standing with an empty gun and a wounded boar that wants a piece of you.

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Science plus Art

For you I would vote for the slug shotgun for two reasons:
1.) You are familiar with and even have a shotgun. For hogs you don't need a scope or rifled slug barrel. In Louisiana , hog hunting is a short range and fast shooting affair.
2.) A muzzeloading rifle is going to require you to buy one , along with all the accessories, then learn how to load, shoot, and hope you don't need a fast follow up because basically a muzzle loader is a single shot that must be reloaded on the spot without a self contained case.
Hunting with muzzle loaders is a fun and challenging endeavor, but for a one time hunt on a ranch, the shotgun with slugs is the ticket.

Now if you are already a seasoned muzzeloading rifle hunter / shooter then you already know what to do and how to do it...it's just a matter of taking the gun you feel most confident with. I hunt with them and own several that I have taken deer. For hogs , I still prefer having more than one shot..... I can't climb trees too well anymore and hogs can get mean and nasty quick.
Gary

Fond as I am of MLs, I wouldn't use one for hog hunting. I don't hog hunt myself, but my friends who do use either CF rifles or shotguns with slugs.

Just remembered, one friend uses 12 gauge 000 Buck on hogs. Hog hunting is more up close than long-range sniping.

My brother has bagged several deer at over 200 yards with his inline ML.

I personally know one person who was treed by hogs, whoops make it 2 I was once also and once person treed by wild cattle.

Texas brush hunting really sounds like a shotgun to me.
Read this test on new slugs and effective range.

American Hunter | Is the Maximum Range of Shotgun Slugs 100 yards?

You could use a shotgun this year and work toward proficiency with a muzzle loader for next year.

I have many years with slugs for deer, not by choice. If you
have 500 moss, and it's not full choke, all you need is scope.
Gun will probably do 3" at 100yds. with plain old slugs. I have
several slug guns, some factory, some home made. Have shot
enough deer with them to be in jail. Average shot 40yds, although have shoot a few 100+ yds. The rifled barrel with
Sabots will out shoot smooth barrel, but not by enough that I
run out and got one. Moss 500 one of easiest to drill& tap for
scope base, Alumilum reciever. If you are getting scoped, try
barrel you have, will surprise you. For a one time hunt you
won't have money in barrel, or be buying $3@ sabots. Going to
use my slug barrels to stake tomatoes- Ohio is now Rifle legal!!
By the way we sight in dead on at 60yds.

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I would get the shotgun for two reasons and they are you can make a follow up shot on a wounded Hog quickly and secondly after you shoot a muzzleloader you can't see for almost a minute because of the dense smoke making it hard to see where a the Hog went after the shot.

What Drm50 says is true, modern slug loads do surprisingly well out of a modified choked un-rifled barrel. In fact if you have a fixed full choke (not screw in ) shotgun , they can turn in surprising groups.
Screw in full choke tubes might be damaged by slugs, check with maker.
Buy several different types of slugs and test them out, not all shoot the same.
My smooth bore grouped Remington's best.
Gary

YES they will reach that far, but the trigger is still a MB 500 shotgun trigger & is the limiting factor IMO. The advantage to the MB for me is the versatility. For the $ you mentioned that scope is likely not top shelf, aside from being overpowered. +1 for a smoothbore with the MB open rifle type sights & less expensive slugger type ammo that will work fine for closer ranges & buckshot on future hunts. I would look for 2 used MB barrels, 1 smoothbore with open sights & a 2nd rifled bbl & decent low powered fixed or variable 1x4-2x7 scope. Will you be hunting strictly from a stand, the ground, or both? Being able to swap bbl.'s in a few seconds would be a big +.
If Nigali are an option, I'm thinking high fences & big $ so don't pinch penny's on gear & splurge a bit on a good scope. My rifled bbl has been collecting dust for some time. The lighter wt of the smoothbore, lower cost of non sabot ammo, similar accuracy at closer ranges have me back where I started in 1976. Enjoy your hunt.

I use to hunt deer with a muzzleloader, lots of fun.
But, a 370gr. T/C maxi out of a 50 cal. will probably run about 1300 + fps.
Where as a rifled 12 ga. will push a 385 gr. sabot at about 2000 fps. ( or so they advertise on the sabot box)

Plus I'm willing to bet a big mean old pig can cover 100 yards before you could get another round half way loaded in an old front stuffer..

Now if you are going to be hunting from a elevated stand ,, or you're a really good tree climber,, a muzzleloading pig hunt could be a really interesting story to tell..

A big "much obliged" to all of you who responded. Good ideas and advice - I had no idea slug technology had advanced to such a degree. I have probably 20-25 old Foster slugs that I need to test out of my old Mossberg to see how they group. I remember when I was a kid I once tested the slugs against an old refrigerator at the local dump. It was grouping okay after 2 shots, and the third shot took the door right off of the fridge! I was pretty impressed with the Foster slugs at that point.

The place we will hunt, if we are lucky enough to draw permits, will allow you to use center fire rifles to hunt feral hogs and nilgai only, but if you use either a 20 ga. or larger shotgun with slugs, or a .40 caliber or larger muzzleloader, you have the opportunity to kill 2 whitetail deer (1 buck and 1 doe, or 2 does).

I will provide an update if we get to hunt the place.

Again, many thanks to all of you who responded.

Best regards,

Dave

Ten years ago I would have said the muzzleloader...but that was before Savage came out with the 220 slug gun. There is a very high probability that you will not be able to just slap a slug barrel on a Mossberg 500 and be able to make consistent kill shots at even 100 yards, much less 200. Is there a Mossberg 500 somewhere that will do it??? Probably, and all the fanboys will be along in a minute to tell you that they all will. I live in slug only country, have smithed on shotguns well over half my life and I am telling don't count on it. Of the two choices, ML or Slug gun, I would opt for the Savage 220.

Several years back, maybe 5 or 6, just on a lark, I fired 10 rounds of old (like really old with paper cases) 12 gauge Foster-type slugs through a Winchester Model 12 with a full choke barrel and just the normal bead front sight. I used a shooting bench and sandbags. I succeeded in keeping all hits on a single piece of 8-1/2" x 11" typing paper at 100 yards with a dead-center hold. As I am not a slug person, I don't know if that performance would be bettered using a dedicated slug barrel and saboted slugs, or if one should even fire saboted slugs through a full-choke barrel (I have never fired a saboted slug). Anyway, I would have no concerns about using that same combination on feral hogs. For most places in Texas, sub-100 yard shots (and often much less) are pretty much a standard expectation for deer and hogs.

That's a funny thing about slugs...a dedicated rifled barrel slug gun might not shoot much better {if at all} than a shotgun that was really never meant to shoot them at all.
The Savage 220 with a good scope, good ammo and in the right hands will clover leaf at 200 yards.

As I see it, the real problem in longer-range hitting with any rifled slug is the rainbow-like trajectory at any distance over maybe 50-75 yards, and the need to very accurately judge distance to the target if you expect to hit it. I think it was just a coincidence and dumb luck that my Model 12 was able to print slugs pretty much where I held the front sight at 100 yards. At 150 yards (or maybe less) the point of impact with the same center hold could easily have been a foot or two lower than at 100 yards.

Out of curiosity what about both?
Muzzleloader and shotgun with slugs for backup in case of a pig charge!

__________________
Wherever my mind isn't
Jim

Dewalt, that is just about standard out of the older model guns,
With a set of sights of a scope you will do a lot better. The older
guns have more "gradual" and longer choke. A lot of the newer
model guns have short choke portion, swaged externally. I use
old A5-w12-w97-r10 all shot win or rem slugs very well. When
sighted in for one or the other.
The rifled jobs will out shot the smooth bores with sabots.For
woods deer hunting 200yd shots are not near the norm. We
Have a lot of Turkey Shots in these parts. Slugs are shot at
100' and 100yds, off hand. At 100' most everyone on line will
be in 4" ring, at 100yds 9". Most popular guns are Rem 1100
870, Moss500, and Ithaca 37s with slug barrels. Died in the
wool Deer hunters here had been looking for ultimate slug guns
for years. Most had scopes and shot a lot of slugs practicing and
at shoots. They killed their deer every year, so when rifled guns
came out there wasn't a stampede get one.

The smooth bore brenneke rifled slugs aren't too bad at 50 yards I never shot them farther. In a smooth bore I shot sabots too on some miss information. The accuracy wasn't bad. Out of a model 120 Winchester w/ slug smooth bore barrel.

The bore is a closer shot?