Hybrid Hunting

Am Shooting Journal ^ | 8/21/20 | O Volk

[w1n1]

The Savage 220Y And The Winchester SX3 Provide Accuracy And Power Where Rifled Shotguns Are Needed Or Required
In modern America, rifled shotguns are hybrid creatures spawned mainly by regulatory compliance. Several states require them for deer hunting, with the justifications ranging from reduced range for densely populated areas to deliberately limited effectiveness to give deer a fighting chance. Their technical provenance, however, goes back quite a bit further.

The first bolt-action rifle adopted by Prussia in late 1840s, the Dreyse "needle gu", used projectiles somewhere between 16 gauge and 20 gauge – a 1-ounce bullet riding a paper sabot at around 1,000 feet per second. As rifle designs improved and metallic cartridges came into use, several 1870s designs in Europe and the U.S. settled around .44 caliber, with ¾-ounce projectiles launched around 1,500 fps, a velocity sufficient to expand soft lead and provide massive stopping power on soft-skinned foes such as humans or leopards. Incidentally, that ballistic envelope is very similar to today’s 20-gauge hunting loads.

As people came upon more thick-skinned game, including Cape buffalo and grizzly bears, large-bore rifles gained popularity, culminating in the massive .700 Nitro Express. Similar to the 12-gauge shotgun in bore size, the .700 NE had three times the energy and massively greater penetration. Limited to lower-pressure actions, shotguns could not compete.

Big-bore rifles, however, had their downside as well. They were very expensive, had massive recoil and launched a day's wages downrange with every trigger pull. Shotguns, while less powerful, were far cheaper to shoot and didn't beat up the hunter nearly as badly. For most North American game, whether dangerous or merely edible, 12-gauge slugs were more than sufficient at close range.

At distance, some accuracy could be gained with rifled chokes or fully rifled barrels. As game regulations forced rifles out of hunters’ hands in several states, rifled shotguns enjoyed a resurgence. A few hunters even chose them over rifles for close-range use because of the massive payloads available, up to 2 ounces in 12 gauge. In many areas, the rifled shotgun became the working man's safari rifle.

I TESTED TWO EXAMPLES of such hunting arms, the bolt-action Savage 220Y, a lightweight youth 20 gauge, and a Winchester SX3 Cantilever Buck, a gas-operated semiauto 12 gauge. Both have fully rifled barrels intended mainly for sabot slugs. In addition to sabot loads, I also tried Brenneke-style slugs, which work in smooth or rifled barrels.

The Savage 220Y has no provision for iron sights, so I used it with a 1-4x Vortex scope. With ¾-ounce Brenneke K.O. slugs, it had moderate recoil and gave consistent three-shot groups at ½ inch at 25 yards, the longest distance available to me during the testing.

THE WINCHESTER SX3 comes with a four-shot tube and an optic rail cantilevered off the barrel. That way, barrels may be swapped and replaced without a substantial shift in the zero. It also had a set of post and notch iron sights visible through the trough in the optic rail.

While adequate, these sights didn’t strike me as ideal, so I put a Holosun red dot on the rail for accuracy testing. I picked it over a larger magnified optic for two reasons: proximity to the bore line and the unlimited eye relief. I wasn’t sure what kind of recoil to expect. Read the complete version of hybrid hunting Savage 220Y Winchester SX3.

[gnarledmaw]

I bagged a prius last year. Looked like I would fill the freezer but it made terrible sausage.

[momtothree]

In before the first freeper posts a recipe. :)

[real saxophonist]