I know many of us are still shooting lots of pellets (and will continue to do so), and still enjoying them immensely (myself included). But it’s not really an arguable statement to say that the airgun industry is leaning pretty hard into this slugs-as-the-biggest-technological-advance-in-our-hobby-since-PCPs, idea.
Are slugs “better” than pellets? And if so, in what regard?
First off, yeah, slugs generally have much better ballistic coefficients than pellets. In the case of my personal shooting, I’ve seen .22 slugs absolutely crush prairie dogs and Euro doves when compared to the effect seen from a comparably powered .22 pellet at a similar distance. So, no argument from me that slugs anecdotally seem to retain their energy better than pellets. So, sure, I’ll go along with them being better in that regard.
But what about accuracy? The accuracy/precision potential of COMMERCIALLY available slugs being better than that of pellets seems to be a little more of a gray area than the BC/retained energy concept.
Before I’m burned at the stake let me preface that thought with a description of what we’re seeing in the Extreme FT events here in AZ. And let me preface that with some thoughts on scientific comparisons.
Other than a purposefully designed study/trial, it is rare to find a somewhat naturally occurring situation that allows for a mostly proper comparison between two variables. The problem with comparing two variables in most situations is that there are many other variables at play affecting the results. When people share pics of groups from slugs or pellets, we don’t know the wind conditions, or if that’s an average group, or if it took that person 100 other groups to get that really good group, or if they woke up at 5am when the wind was perfectly still or shot it in the most wind-protected place ever. So, comparing slug groups shared from a certain member to pellet groups shared from someone else really tells us nothing. Different day, different elevation, different wind conditions, different temp, etc.
Back to the Extreme FT events. There are only two classes (both limited to .30 and 100fpe): slugs or pellets. And whether the shooter picks slugs or pellets, they have to be commercially available. The Extreme FT rules have removed many of the other variables. Max scope power is 25x. Shooters can click or holdover. None of the gadgets that normal field target shooters use are allowed in Extreme, so there aren’t butthooks that wrap under and around the shoulder, nor are there 1 foot tall knee risers. As for position, shooters are all sitting on a stool or bucket (although bumbag is allowed, just gotta have feet flat on the ground), and using shooting sticks and shooting from a reasonable position that just about any “gun person” (firearm or otherwise) would recognize as a normal way to shoot a gun. You know, stock of the gun where it is supposed to be, buttpad pulled up to the shoulder/armpit, cheek resting on the CHEEKPIECE, trigger hand on the grip of the gun, non-trigger hand supporting the forearm of the gun, gun resting in shooting sticks in the normal way. None of the contortionist stuff going on, or guns missing substantial and usually necessary portions of their stocks, or guns literally bolted down into rail-gun like artillery pieces. Just good ole-fashioned, shoot a gun like it’s traditionally supposed to be shot, positions.
So, we’ve got slug and pellet shooters using the same shooting position, taking 40 shots at the same targets, from 20-100 yards, no wind-flags (would introduce the variable of who has spent more time shooting over the top of wind flags and can read them best), no unlimited sighter-shot silliness (whose gun has the biggest booby bottles and mag capacity), in the same roughly 2 hour window of weather conditions, with the same caliber limit and fpe limit and scope mag limits, all with hits and misses being recorded by an impartial witness. Really, about as fair of a comparison between pellets and slugs as we’re likely to find. (yeah the guns and barrels are a variable but it’s not realistic to think that we’re going to find a particular gun/barrel that shoots pellets just as good a slugs, or vice versa so that we could compare pellets and slugs from the same gun).
Also a pretty good comparison to most field conditions in which we would find ourselves hunting and caring about getting that pellet to go where we want it to.
The slugs gotta just be killing it right? The guys shooting slugs have just got to be scoring so much higher that the pellet shooters are completely demoralized…………NOPE. I think we’re up to 4 monthly matches now and the high score from the pellet shooters and the slug shooters has been very similar each month. Last month both classes’ high scores were identical.
And we’re not even shooting at crazy-hard targets like a dime at 100 yards would be. We’re talking 2 inches at 100 yards being on the extremely hard end of the spectrum of target placement thus far. Nor is there any kind of $$$ limit on the rigs that can be used. And there are some guys using PRICEY gun/scope combos already and all indications suggest that is only going to keep going up.
So, what’s going on here? Why doesn’t that superior BC equate to higher scores from the slug shooters in about the most fair comparison between slugs and pellets that we’re likely to find?
Is the required shooting position the accuracy limiting factor? Cuz there are those that have argued that "bucket and sticks" is the easiest of all shooting positions to master. So it can't be that.
Is it as simple as non-witnessed accuracy claims/editing out all the misses for the YouTube video versus reality?
There are some exceptionally talented shooters at these events too. State champions in various disciplines, firearm and airgun, as well as National champs, and even a previous EBR winner and others that have placed fairly high in EBR.
So, what gives? Is there anybody out there repeatedly and consistently getting better groups with slugs than pellets?
Are slugs “better” than pellets? And if so, in what regard?
First off, yeah, slugs generally have much better ballistic coefficients than pellets. In the case of my personal shooting, I’ve seen .22 slugs absolutely crush prairie dogs and Euro doves when compared to the effect seen from a comparably powered .22 pellet at a similar distance. So, no argument from me that slugs anecdotally seem to retain their energy better than pellets. So, sure, I’ll go along with them being better in that regard.
But what about accuracy? The accuracy/precision potential of COMMERCIALLY available slugs being better than that of pellets seems to be a little more of a gray area than the BC/retained energy concept.
Before I’m burned at the stake let me preface that thought with a description of what we’re seeing in the Extreme FT events here in AZ. And let me preface that with some thoughts on scientific comparisons.
Other than a purposefully designed study/trial, it is rare to find a somewhat naturally occurring situation that allows for a mostly proper comparison between two variables. The problem with comparing two variables in most situations is that there are many other variables at play affecting the results. When people share pics of groups from slugs or pellets, we don’t know the wind conditions, or if that’s an average group, or if it took that person 100 other groups to get that really good group, or if they woke up at 5am when the wind was perfectly still or shot it in the most wind-protected place ever. So, comparing slug groups shared from a certain member to pellet groups shared from someone else really tells us nothing. Different day, different elevation, different wind conditions, different temp, etc.
Back to the Extreme FT events. There are only two classes (both limited to .30 and 100fpe): slugs or pellets. And whether the shooter picks slugs or pellets, they have to be commercially available. The Extreme FT rules have removed many of the other variables. Max scope power is 25x. Shooters can click or holdover. None of the gadgets that normal field target shooters use are allowed in Extreme, so there aren’t butthooks that wrap under and around the shoulder, nor are there 1 foot tall knee risers. As for position, shooters are all sitting on a stool or bucket (although bumbag is allowed, just gotta have feet flat on the ground), and using shooting sticks and shooting from a reasonable position that just about any “gun person” (firearm or otherwise) would recognize as a normal way to shoot a gun. You know, stock of the gun where it is supposed to be, buttpad pulled up to the shoulder/armpit, cheek resting on the CHEEKPIECE, trigger hand on the grip of the gun, non-trigger hand supporting the forearm of the gun, gun resting in shooting sticks in the normal way. None of the contortionist stuff going on, or guns missing substantial and usually necessary portions of their stocks, or guns literally bolted down into rail-gun like artillery pieces. Just good ole-fashioned, shoot a gun like it’s traditionally supposed to be shot, positions.
So, we’ve got slug and pellet shooters using the same shooting position, taking 40 shots at the same targets, from 20-100 yards, no wind-flags (would introduce the variable of who has spent more time shooting over the top of wind flags and can read them best), no unlimited sighter-shot silliness (whose gun has the biggest booby bottles and mag capacity), in the same roughly 2 hour window of weather conditions, with the same caliber limit and fpe limit and scope mag limits, all with hits and misses being recorded by an impartial witness. Really, about as fair of a comparison between pellets and slugs as we’re likely to find. (yeah the guns and barrels are a variable but it’s not realistic to think that we’re going to find a particular gun/barrel that shoots pellets just as good a slugs, or vice versa so that we could compare pellets and slugs from the same gun).
Also a pretty good comparison to most field conditions in which we would find ourselves hunting and caring about getting that pellet to go where we want it to.
The slugs gotta just be killing it right? The guys shooting slugs have just got to be scoring so much higher that the pellet shooters are completely demoralized…………NOPE. I think we’re up to 4 monthly matches now and the high score from the pellet shooters and the slug shooters has been very similar each month. Last month both classes’ high scores were identical.
And we’re not even shooting at crazy-hard targets like a dime at 100 yards would be. We’re talking 2 inches at 100 yards being on the extremely hard end of the spectrum of target placement thus far. Nor is there any kind of $$$ limit on the rigs that can be used. And there are some guys using PRICEY gun/scope combos already and all indications suggest that is only going to keep going up.
So, what’s going on here? Why doesn’t that superior BC equate to higher scores from the slug shooters in about the most fair comparison between slugs and pellets that we’re likely to find?
Is the required shooting position the accuracy limiting factor? Cuz there are those that have argued that "bucket and sticks" is the easiest of all shooting positions to master. So it can't be that.
Is it as simple as non-witnessed accuracy claims/editing out all the misses for the YouTube video versus reality?
There are some exceptionally talented shooters at these events too. State champions in various disciplines, firearm and airgun, as well as National champs, and even a previous EBR winner and others that have placed fairly high in EBR.
So, what gives? Is there anybody out there repeatedly and consistently getting better groups with slugs than pellets?
After Novembers match, which was the last time I shot the gun, I went 33/36 in practice on the non off hand targets with .217 JSB KO slugs, so I thought it would be good to go for you. Sorry brother~!