Monday Gunday: Just Call Me Slugger

Self, I thought, I want to shoot my shotgun today. 

Capital idea, old chum! I replied. But whence shall I discharge my scattergun? The county range doth disallow gauges.

Hmm. That is a good question. [Thinks] You know, I seem to recall that I could shoot at that indoor range if I bought their expensive frangible ammo. And I do need to test this nice Center of Mass Laser that Laserlyte was kind enough to send me...

Yoicks and away, old bean!

Yes, sometimes the voices in my head talk back in a Victorian accent.

Regardless, I went shooting today because 1) I really wanted to and 2) I wasn't able to go on the weekend due to health issues. And I figured "Hey, I already have the Gun Blog Variety Cast article in the bag, so why not just GO already?"

So I went, because there will likely never be a good time to go; just times that are okay which I can, hopefully, turn good through determination and hard work.

I got to the range, bought their ammo ($11 for five shells!) and set up.. only to discover that they'd sold me slugs instead of shot.

Um, excuse me sir, but I specifically said I wanted to pattern my shotgun and you sold me these slugs. Don't you have any shot?

Why no, li'l missy. We ain't got no shot, only slugs. You think them frangible slugs're expensive? You oughtta see frangible shot prices.

Drat. 

Well, I was there, and I'd already bought the slugs, and I'd never shot slugs before, and my heart was set on using my shotgun today, so... ah, heck with it, let's just shoot stuff.

I set the target up at either 25 or 30 feet (there is some disagreement on that; the line painted on the wall said "10 yards" while the position indicator that sent the target downrange said "25 feet" -- regardless, it was at what I'd call "home defense range"), set the center dot of the CoM laser at the illustrated heart of my target, and pulled the trigger.

I am pleased to report that, frangible or not, a 12 gauge in an enclosed shooting alley makes a dramatic KABOOM sound, much like a miniature cannon. (Which is reasonable, really, when you realize that a 12 gauge slug is actually a .73 caliber bullet.)

Shell: 12ga 2.75" Copper-Matrix NTF

Gun: Mossberg 500 with 18.5" barrel

How'd I do?

Boom, heart shot.
Boom, lung.
Boom, other lung.

By this time I was reeling a bit from the recoil -- which, while not as painful as I expected, was still pretty forceful and had rather a lot of muzzle rise -- so the spine and head shots were off by an inch.

Still, the spine shot hit the lung, and the head shot looks like I got him in the cheek or the jaw -- which is pretty damn discouraging despite being non-fatal.

Again, I'd like to point out that I accomplished very nice bullet hits using a laser designed to compensate for the spread of shot pellets, as indicated by the ring of lasers designating "your shot will land in roughly this area."

http://www.laserlyte.com/products/cm-15

It turns out that for a spread designator, that center dot is pretty bang-on accurate for slugs

(A full review of the Laserlyte Center of Mass laser will come later.)