Category Archives: Performance Issues

Randy: I have a Mossberg 835 shotgun chamber in 3 1/2″. I’m having trouble finding sabot slugs for it. I have found one place near me (Cabela’s) that carries them. How much accuracy do I loose going to a 3″ or even a 2 3/4″ sabot slug?

The only loss in accuracy that could possibly occur will come from firing the 2 3/4 in sabot slug in a 3 1/2 in chamber. Even at that it is a hit and miss issue. It has never appeared to be a dangerous issue, only an accuracy problem. Firing any 3 in saboted round in a 3 1/2 in chamber should not effect overall accuracy.

Randy,

I am interested in building a longer range shooter taking advantage of some of the new sabots available by Winchester, Horandy, Federal, and Remington. Of course, if Lightfield has something available that can match or exceed the new stuff in the area of long-range shooting, I want to know that too. Anyway, back on subject, would I be able to get a custom-built gun specifically made to shoot the faster, lighter, slugs (2000-2100fps, 300-385 grains) out to the 200-yard range or beyond?

“This same question keeps popping up on a regular basis, 200-yard slugs!”

In my opinion 200 yd. slugs only exist in the full-page ads of some sabot slug mfg. The 12 gauge 2000-2100ft/sec. they advertise only exists, if then, under laboratory conditions with a 30-inch smooth bore barrel at 70 degrees!

Since in the real world, we hunt with rifled barrels between 20 and 24 inches long and we generally are hunting in near 10-degree weather. Weather can be unpredictable so it’s important to take the correct gear with you on a hunt. Cabela’s stock some good hunting products that are well worth taking a look at. There’s even more reason to do so if you can get a discount from Raise using coupons or promo codes found on their website. It makes success at hunting that much sweeter!
The 1750-1850ft/sec. real velocities leaves us well short of 200+ yards. With the average velocity of these magical 200 yards slugs being closer to 1800ft/sec. and only weighing on average 300 grains (under 5/8oz,) the energy levels fall way below the 1000ft/lbs required to cleanly kill a whitetail deer at those advertised ranges, and that would be with the help of a range finder.

If you could achieve those magical velocities under the hunting criteria listed above, you WILL HAVE as high as a 20% flyer rate because at those high velocities you are asking the sabot to grip onto a smooth copper jacketed bullet and spin the bullet at 60,000 RPM’s in (1-28 twist) the first 1/4 inch of movement down the barrel! Highly unlikely.

The 54,000 RPM’s (from a 1-28 twist) required for stabilization and accuracy cannot be achieved every round without a mechanical lock between the sabot and the smooth copper jacketed bullet. To expect anything different is wishful thing just like the magazine ads!

The bottom line is: “Do you want with a sabot slug that has an automatically near 15% flyer rate”?

Randy…thanks for taking my questions! I shoot the Remington 11-87 Special Purpose Deer gun with 2 3/4″ 1900fps Remington core lock Ultra (385 grain) slugs. I sight in with an Otters bench rest, however am not getting as good results as I would like. I can group a couple of shots then a “flyer or 2” then it comes back into center, then another “flyer”. This worries me because I never know when the “flyer” may rear its ugly head. Have experienced it in the field with drastic consequences. Any suggestions or recommendations?

Your accuracy problem you’re describing is more common than you may think.
I can only assume what is going on because I would need the actual barrel to verify my conclusion.

The barrel is gripping the sabot because of the rifling cutting into it but with a slightly bigger bore there is not enough pressure generated by the smooth inside of the sabot to grip a copper bullet that is being used by other manufactures.

The sabot MUST grip the copper bullet and accelerate it up to nearly 50,000 rpms within a 1/2 inch of forward movement down the barrel to make it fly stable and accurate with a 1-28 twist barrel.

This is a common problem with any make of sabot ammo using any kind of projectile that has some type of copper coating (copper washed, copper jacket, or solid copper)

No matter what manufactures makes it.

Lightfield patent guarantees the sabot and slug are mechanically locked together assuring the proper rpms to stabilize.  The designs also include the ability of the pure lead slug to swell up (upset) itself to fill inside diameter of your barrel regardless of its size! The barrel itself sizes the bullet to the proper fit so each and every slug is a custom fit to the barrel firing the round.

If your slug gun won’t shoot groups with the Lightfield Hybred series of sabot, there is something wrong with the gun, scope, mounts, etc.
Some guns may shoot 1-hole groups, some may shoot 2-4 inch groups, “BUT THEY WILL BE GROUPS”, no crazy flyers way out of the group if you’re doing your part!
Randy

Randy I just wrote to you about how well the 12 ga 3″ hybrid elites shoot. What do you think about a 20 ga. slug gun?

The 20ga only looks good on paper because of higher velocity and it doesn’t recoil so much. It only gets high velocity form shooting light weight projectiles. They shed velocity faster and have no real down range energy.
The 12ga Hybred Lite (reduced recoil) sabot has about the same recoil as a 20 mag. but has about 20% more energy inside 125 yard than the 20ga. At 125 yards the trajectory is so close you cannot see the difference in a hand held gun.
Hybred Exp 2 ¾” 20ga round will deliver the 1000ft/lbs out to 100 yards, that is necessary for white tail deer and clean kills. The NEW 3” Hybred Mag-20 from Lightfield will deliver 1000ft/lbs out to 125 yards.

Anything in the 0-80 yards range, the Hybred Mag-20 performance will equal the reduced recoil 12ga rounds.

That is just the reason that to 20ga does NOT MAKE a good slug gun  in any current production ammo in 2103.

What’s with the new 16 ga slug, what makes it better than the old one?

Mel,

Since there is no 3″ mag. version of a 16 ga. slug gun, increasing the weight from 7/8oz up to a full 1oz. sabot gives the 16 ga. better all round performance as a slug gun.
Randy