[TheOldOne]

The 12 Ga. H&R Ultra Slug gun is one hell of a deer getter. I've hunted deer in South Jersey for more decades than I care to remember and I've used a number of shotguns during that time. Prior to NJ allowing the use of slugs for hunting deer, it really did not matter what shotgun you used because buckshot is very forgiving. Since the change to allow slugs however, it matters much more what gun you use. Again, I've used a number of dedicated slug guns. First was a Remington 870 . . . a good gun but not what I call a tack-driver. Next, I went with a Mossberg 500 based on a friend’s recommendation but I found this to be less accurate than the Remington 870. Then I went back to Remington with an 11-87 - again, a good gun but not a true tack-driver either. Now all of these guns had rifled barrels and cantilevered scope mounts. While helping my grandson sight in his gun at our local range early last fall, I watched an acquaintance shoot 3 consecutive 3-shot groups at 100 yds that were all either single jagged holes or cloverleaf groups. He was using a 12 Ga. H&R Ultra Slug gun. Oh yes, I had seen the occasional cloverleaf 3-shot group before with slugs but never three in a row. I asked him if he had anything special done to the gun but he said no, he had not. I went out that night and purchased a 12 Ga. H&R Ultra Slug for myself, a new 3 to 9 power Nikon SlugHunter scope, and a LimbSaver recoil pad for it. The gun dealer mounted and bore sighted the scope for me and the next day found me back at that same range. I had picked-up a couple of 25 round boxes of 3" Federal Hydra Shok slugs that were on sale for $26.00 a box and they went to the range with me. It only took me two shots to get on the bull at 25 yds. and another two to get on the bull at 50 yds. The Nikon SlugHunter scope should have the center crosshairs set to shoot 50 yds and have circular aim points for 100, 150, and 200 yds beneath the regular crosshairs. After putting a 3-shot group dead center bull at 50 yds, I moved to the 100 yd. portion of the range and shot from the sandbagged bench rest there. I simply used the 100 yd. aim point and to my utter amazement my first three shot group was a dead center cloverleaf. Our range only goes to 100 yds so I was not able to test at 150 or 200 yds. that day. Since I hunt Maryland with a friend pretty much every year, I had wanted to test my Ultra Slug at those farther distances. We hunt my friend’s farm in Maryland and my tree-stand offers possible shots to 200 yds and a mite more. Before the season opened, I managed to test my Ultra Slug at 150 and 200 yds using the aim points and found that my groups had opened up some but were still well within deer killing tolerances with 3" groups at 150 yds and 4" groups at 200 yds. I killed a nice spike in South Jersey on opening day there and a beautiful 9-point in Maryland on opening day there as well. The Maryland 9-point was taken at a ranged 144 yds. and was the longest slug-gun shot I had ever taken and that buck dropped stone dead without moving an inch. I have two recommendations: get and use a good rangefinder and get a relatively high power scope for those longer shots. If you are wondering if I would recommend the H&R Ultra Slug . . . what do you think? I have never seen any slug-gun shoot like the H&R Ultra Slug does right out of the box.