Sight in Your Slug Gun Without Breaking the Bank

By Richard Becraft

New shotgun, new barrel, it doesn’t matter what the reason. Sooner or later every hunter needs to do it. Sight in that deer gun. If everyone had a magazine backing them with an expense account and plenty of time wouldn’t we all be lucky! Just stop by the grocery. Pick up a magazine, ransom rest, a box of every kind of shells made and then on out to our dream range.

Well until that happens, let me see what I can do to take some of the sting out of our end of that expensive ammunition. Let’s start by getting it “on the paper”. We need a steady shooting platform and a steady, comfortable place for the shooter to sit while aiming. Sand bags are a must and something lighter but solid to use with them for adjustments. I use wooden blocks for that but I imagine phone books would work very well in place of them. Add a nylon ratchet strap to this list, a good paper target with a holder and we are ready to head to the range.

I’m using a Remington 870 here so with this type of pump action gun you can remove the barrel for this process. Once at the range set up your target 10 yards out from the table and set up your sand bags and blocks with the barrel with sights on them and the strap laying loosely under the block. I’m using a Remington 870 here so with this type of pump action gun you can remove the barrel. Place the nylon strap over the barrel and hook it to it’s self and tighten just enough to hold the barrel in a fixed position and again check for alignment with the bull’s eye.

Now look through the barrel and check for alignment with the bull. If it appears correct look down the sights for the same alinement as you see looking through the barrel. If these appear to match you are ready to move on to 25 yards and haven’t fired a shot yet. If they are not then make a sight adjustment and recheck until there is no obvious difference. When the sights and barrel appear aligned at 10 yards I recommend moving out to 25 yards and repeat.

I wouldn’t fire a shot until I had achieved this “eye ball” bore sighting alignment first. Once achieved though You are ready to fire one at 25 yards. Just because this seems very close to the target don’t take it for granted. Get the gun set on the bags and yourself solid in the seat. With an empty chamber dry fire the weapon once and watch through the scope or over the iron sights for any movement when the trigger snaps. Make what ever adjustments needed to minimize this occurrence. With that achieved load one in the chamber and make one solid, no doubts, shot aimed directly at the bull.

This shot should land in the bull or approximately 1 inch low. If it is not then once again strap down the gun and aim the sites or cross hairs directly on the center of the bull where you were aiming when the first shot was fired. When the sights are on the bull and the gun is solidly held by the strap on the sand bags, now you can adjust the sights to the point of impact.

Repeat this procedure at 50 yards and 75 yards and you’ll be ready to start trying different brands of slugs to shoot for groups to determine the best accuracy for you gun. For the terrain and the way I hunt here in southern Indiana I like to have my slug gun zeroed in for 75 yards. Zeroed at 75 and using the ammunition that suits your gun any shot between 0 and 100 yards should be a dead on “gimme”.

If you are familiar with a 22 long rifle and it’s ballistics characteristics your are ready for most 12 gauge slugs. Both the 22 Long Rifle and 12 gauge slugs are close enough to the same velocity that any where with in their range of acceptable accuracy the difference in ballistics on deer size game should be negligible.

Of course hitting them and killing them are completely different propositions requiring legitimate weapons suitable for deer size game. But when you are looking out there across an open field with a slug gun you have established confidence in it might help when choosing an aim point to consider where you would aim with that little 22 you’ve shot at all kinds of distances and targets. To many times hunters will over estimate a distance in the field and shoot right over the top of a deer.

This should get just about any deer gun on the paper at 75 yards and ready to start testing for groups in less than 5 shots. When those five shots each kick like a mule and cost a buck fifty a piece nobody wants to waste any. Good luck to all and maybe if the bruise goes away in time we’ll make a run for ammo and try some of those three shot groups to see what this thing is really capable of!

By Richard Becraft