Has the Slug Zone Outlived its Usefullness?

Just wondering. There are now muzzleloaders with high power scopes out there that are advertised as 300-500 yard capable and can be hunted with 25 days a year. Average muzzleloaders and slug guns are capable of 200 yards+. AR pistols in rifle calibers are legal depending on who you are asking. We now have a nine day regular and a 16 day muzzleloader season to get our deer. Where it used to be 1 to 4 days and people did deer drives. Now deer drives are rare.

A lot less shooting on opening day now with an uptick the second weekend, filling doe tags? People sit in stands and wait for the “right” deer. It is now rare to hear the 5 round volleys that used to be common. I don’t see many guys with there bird barrels anymore. Times have changed.

If it is about safety, I can’t think of anything worse than a bunch of guys with AR pistols. There are fewer farmers out working in the field and less livestock out there than decades ago.

Biology? I really don’t think that the deer kill would go up much at all at this point if centerfire rifles were legal.

Iowa, Michigan, Ohio and maybe 1 or 2 other states have legalized certain straight-wall centerfire calibers in their slug zones, 44 mag, 45-70, 44 marlin, 357, 450 Bushmaster etc.

Just some thoughts.

Interesting points. There’s nothing wrong with waiting for the “right” deer. Being selective is a personal hunter’s choice. As for a muzzle loader, correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t they take a lot longer to reload? As with a slug gun you can just reload right away. I can’t comment on the distance or accuracy of either a slug gun or a muzzle loader because I’ve only ever used a scoped rifle, but if I had to, I would use a slug gun with a rifled barrel over a muzzle loader.

I think the shotgun zone is in place due to population density and maybe even hunter density.

Where I hunt in Zone 3 the opener was as usual, a zoo with drives and LOTS of multiple shot volleys. Between the first shot and 11 in the morning I’ll bet I heard no less than 400 shots fired in the surrounding area. The late afternoon on the opener had more of the same. By comparison, the second day of the season I heard seven shots all day….same exact area.

What I noticed sitting on stand all day is the up-tick in road shooters this year. Where I sat this year I saw two different pick-ups stop and people bailed out and shot at deer that were downhill from me. Both of these instances occurred on the opening weekend, so not much has changed in the illegal hunter department. I called the sheriff’s department on both and gave the color and brand of vehicles as well as specific location. There was no way to get a license number. Thru the week both vehicles were seen back making the rounds each evening just before dark. Not one CO vehicle was seen during the whole season. Not one. And this in an area where we could always count on being checked at the car in the farm yard maybe twice or more during the early season and perhaps a time or two more driving out of the valley coming home. I’ve never been unhappy to see a heavy CO presence during the deer season but now they’re a figment of the imagination.

And for a Darwin type of award, we had an idiot in a ladder stand set on private property, with a gun, having only a sticking cap with about half orange on it, right across the property line. Full camo otherwise. He was there every day both weekends and, yes, he got the tip call.

I hunt a scoped in-line muzzy during the regular season but the “300-500 yard” capability you have mentioned isn’t likely where I hunt, nor in most of the wooded areas in the shotgun zone unless a person is on flat land with nothing but air between him and the target and even then he has to have a bullet that will expand properly at those distances and reduced velocity. Most of those scopes are used for long range target shooting unless the shooter is seriously impaired and thinking that he has one up on the deer.

The buck I shot was at about 45 yards broadside, standing, when I shot him. My doe was a downhill shot at about 95 yards, standing broadside. And the third deer was a doe at 165 yards, severely downhill standing broadside. All one shot kills with one drop-on-the-spot. Off-hand. I take no “chance” shots or shots at a moving target. All were relatively open woods shots. All of these shots would be doable with a scoped shotgun save maybe for the long downhill one.

For the most part I feel safe where I hunt in spite of the zoo tactics that come each opening day. Now if multi-shot, full blown rifles were allowed in this zone, maybe not so much for the safety. Based on how many shot up and gut shot dead deer I have found on the property I hunt over the years I’d say that there are plenty of poor shots or chance takers in the field yet and CF rifles would only make things less safe and worse for the same problems.

We have hunted with rifles in Buffalo County WI for a long time. The deer populations are reportedly still at all-time record highs and I haven’t heard of any stories where someone was injured or killed that would’ve been a non-issue had they been shooting a slug.

gimruis wrote:

I would use a slug gun with a rifled barrel over a muzzle loader.

Here’s a couple targets shot with muzzleloaders. The top, tan paper target was at 100 yards with a rifle. about .55″ with two shots. The sight-in target under the tan target was done with an in-line pistol at 50 yards.

For accuracy, a scoped muzzy will be far more accurate than a scoped shotgun and ballistically there are far more and better bullet options for the muzzies than what come with the sabot rounds for the shotguns. Maybe want to think long and hard about the shotgun over the modern muzzleloader using the advanced BH209 powder as you’re approaching CF velocities and certainly faster than the sabot slugs. Granted, the re-loading is slower, but the advantages are way better to off-set the small difference in loading speed or a second shot….which will likely be at a running target.

Tom Sawvell wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>gimruis wrote:</div>
I would use a slug gun with a rifled barrel over a muzzle loader.

Here’s a couple targets shot with muzzleloaders. The top, tan paper target was at 100 yards with a rifle. about .55″ with two shots. The sight-in target under the tan target was done with an in-line pistol at 50 yards.

For accuracy, a scoped muzzy will be far more accurate than a scoped shotgun and ballistically there are far more and better bullet options for the muzzies than what come with the sabot rounds for the shotguns. Maybe want to think long and hard about the shotgun over the modern muzzleloader using the advanced BH209 powder as you’re approaching CF velocities and certainly faster than the sabot slugs. Granted, the re-loading is slower, but the advantages are way better to off-set the small difference in loading speed or a second shot….which will likely be at a running target.

Good advice Tom. I’ll keep this in mind if I ever want or need to enter the non-rifle zone.

I’d need to know the reason for a slug zone to see if it’s still useful to that goal. I hunt rifle and slug zones and it doesn’t bother me.

BigWerm wrote:

I’d need to know the reason for a slug zone to see if it’s still useful to that goal. I hunt rifle and slug zones and it doesn’t bother me.

The reason is number of hunters vs number of residences and fairly open to wide open terrain.

wasn’t uncommon to have hunting parties exceeding 20 people in Swift, stevens, chippewa, LQP, Big-stone, etc. and they would run n gun doing post & drive hunts all over the area all day long. Typical for my party to hunt 10-12 different groves or sloughs from 9 am to 3 pm in a day back when we had lots of deer and lots of tags.

Topography plays a role also to my understanding. Bluff country of SE MN a high powered rifle shot at a steep uphill angle will go a long ways before it finds something.
We used to be shotgun only the opening weekend of WI gun season where I grew up (also the similar coulee country type terrain). I never once had a volley of shotgun slugs fly through the tops of the tree I was in when that was the case, I’ve since had it happen to me 5 (yes five) times since they changed it in the early 2000’s, twice courtesy of the same person about 3 years apart. The worst one the bullets came from a guy shooting on the other side of a state highway, there is a reason I now sit in a spot with one of the biggest trees on the property protecting my back opening weekend (which also happens to be a good place to sit too). Never had bullet holes through the machine shed before the change, there are a couple of them now (not from us). Rifles also make road hunting/poaching easier, though violaters will find a way to violate regardless of the rules.

I’m in Tom’s camp on muzzleloaders, I carry mine in WI rifle now too, I have as much confidence with one shot out of it as my .270, pretty much all my stand sites are 100 yards max stands that you can even get a shot off with any weapon and it doesn’t damage hardly any meat. The deer I shot in MN this year, had that been with my .270 the entire offside shoulder would have been junk.

The whole point of weapons limitations for deer in MN was to limit the overall distance the projectile was likely to travel. A shotgun slug shot at a deer is unlikely to embed itself in that house that the hunter was too jacked up to see in the background just a half-mile away, whereas a .30-06 certainly would.

Obviously, other states recognized that there were cartridges like straight-walled centerfire chamberings that could accomplish a similar goal in terms of range limitations, but that also offered better accuracy and better chances for a clean/humane kill. As usual, untra-conservative “do nothing as long as you can” Minnesota was one of the last to allow the use of these options.

Hunting has a minimal impact on overall numbers. Looking back to the peak deer years when there were record harvests, the population was right back the next year. I don’t think weapons choice will change this, the hunter numbers and their willingness to harvest deer are both finite. I’m not going take more than one deer a year because that’s all the freezer space I have and that’s that. Even the hunter that is willing to take more has his limits, so it is very difficult to significantly ramp up the overall statewide harvest regardless of what you allow.

Grouse

Yes

Interesting discussion.

Would a change to centerfires reduce the number of crippled deer that are not recovered? I think it would help youth hunters and hunters sensitive to recoil become better. More practice, better triggers, cheaper ammo.

I am all for a person shooting whatever deer they want as long as it’s legal.

poomunk wrote:

Topography plays a role also to my understanding. Bluff country of SE MN a high powered rifle shot at a steep uphill angle will go a long ways before it finds something.
We used to be shotgun only the opening weekend of WI gun season where I grew up (also the similar coulee country type terrain). I never once had a volley of shotgun slugs fly through the tops of the tree I was in when that was the case, I’ve since had it happen to me 5 (yes five) times since they changed it in the early 2000’s, twice courtesy of the same person about 3 years apart. The worst one the bullets came from a guy shooting on the other side of a state highway, there is a reason I now sit in a spot with one of the biggest trees on the property protecting my back opening weekend (which also happens to be a good place to sit too). Never had bullet holes through the machine shed before the change, there are a couple of them now (not from us). Rifles also make road hunting/poaching easier, though violaters will find a way to violate regardless of the rules.

I’m in Tom’s camp on muzzleloaders, I carry mine in WI rifle now too, I have as much confidence with one shot out of it as my .270, pretty much all my stand sites are 100 yards max stands that you can even get a shot off with any weapon and it doesn’t damage hardly any meat. The deer I shot in MN this year, had that been with my .270 the entire offside shoulder would have been junk.

I honestly feel safer with the rifles we use shooting safely into heavily wooded bluffs and hillsides of Buffalo County WI than I would with people hunting open, relatively flat fields in Western or Central MN. Topography may play a role in the reasoning, but that role could be debated in a lot of different ways.

As far as the original question goes, I just don’t see the huge role for slug zones. If the premise is safety and stray projectiles, that argument is flawed as one could argue that someone taking careless shots with a rifle will sooner or later cause harm with a shotgun as well.

If someone buys a license to safely harvest a deer while enjoying the outdoors (and uses the harvested animal), I couldn’t care less what firearm they use from a pocket knife to a high powered rifle. There are far bigger issues for our overly zealous government to deal with than this.

Muzzy any day over slug gun. It’s like a single shot rifle for me.

Also the slug/rifle boundary north of the cities has not moved as long as I can remember. Even as the cities with people, developments and hobby farms has moved north. Princeton, North Branch, and Cambridge are suburbs in my mind and they are on the border line.

disco bobber wrote:

Also the slug/rifle boundary north of the cities has not moved as long as I can remember. Even as the cities with people, developments and hobby farms has moved north. Princeton, North Branch, and Cambridge are suburbs in my mind and they are on the border line.

Agreed, the HWY 95 rifle/slug boundary should probably be moved north to a line straight east of Little falls to the MN/WI state line.

I am guessing that the manufacturers of slugs, may have a hand in it also.

big_g wrote:

I am guessing that the manufacturers of slugs, may have a hand in it also.

Doubt it. Most of the brands are broad base ammunition manufacturers anyways. Hornady, federal, remington, that lead and copper is all getting sold in one form or another whether is a box of 5 slugs or a box of 20 centerfire or pistol cartridges.

tornadochaser wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>big_g wrote:</div>
I am guessing that the manufacturers of slugs, may have a hand in it also.

Doubt it. Most of the brands are broad base ammunition manufacturers anyways. Hornady, federal, remington, that lead and copper is all getting sold in one form or another whether is a box of 5 slugs or a box of 20 centerfire or pistol cartridges.

Having a manufacturing background…. I doubt they are built by the same machines and process…

A long time ago The MN DNR used to have a forum. They were asked why a slug zone.
The response was it was started because the general thought was a slug would hit the ground in 400 yards or less when fired level at shoulder height. So they assumed this would be safer. This has proven to be false as a 1oz slug is more likely to ricochet when hitting something vs a high powered round that would fragment when impacting frozen ground. Eveyone who has slug hunted for over 30 years has heard slugs whistle thru the air when somebody missed a deer in a frozen cornfield. I also hunted in WI where one side of road was Rifle South side was slug only. There were not more accidents or houses shot on one side or the other. So WI got rid of slug only in most areas. Guess what no increase in deaths or things shot up. In the forum the DNR admitted that slug only was a feel good rule not based on facts and served no purpose. Through out the slug zone you can predator hunt or small game hunt with any caliber rifle you wish. SO slug only makes no sense. ALmost all rifles also will hit the ground within when fired level with the ground around 400 to 500 yards. I wish it was abolished.

Mwal

mwal wrote:

I wish it was abolished.

Mwal

Me too! Especially since I just picked up a “modern sporting rifle” and would love to get one of the new straight walled uppers for it.

We can hope.