Right To The Point

Slug guns represent a growing market, and no company is more aware of this than Remington. For 2008 the company is raising the performance level of slug loads while at the same time lowering the level of perceived recoil with new versions of its slug guns.

Remington's Premier AccuTip Bonded slug features a plastic tip up front, and its lead core is bonded to the jacket. This slug is unlike anything you have ever fired from a shotgun. About halfway back on the green plastic tip are six open ports that extend through its entire wall thickness, hence a second name, Power Port Tip. Along with a unique and attractive appearance, the ports serve three purposes. By altering the aerodynamic properties of the slug, they increase its stability when fired in a fully rifled barrel with the standard 1:35-inch twist rate, and this improves accuracy. The ports also serve as weakening points in the tip for reliable expansion when velocity drops off at the outer limits of effective slug-gun range.

While developing the AccuTip slug, Remington engineers discovered that the additional rear surface area gained by increasing diameter from .50 to .58 caliber allowed them to avoid the use of special reinforcement of the sabot, which also served to improve accuracy. The new bullet's uncommonly thick jacket is made of cartridge brass--the same material used by Remington to make jackets for its Golden Saber handgun ammunition. Weight is 385 grains and muzzle velocity is 1,850 fps, resulting in energy delivery levels of approximately 1,950 and 1,325 foot-pounds at 100 and 200 yards, respectively.

According to Remington, average accuracy from a machine rest for five-shot groups is less than three inches at 100 yards. A fifty-round test target I saw had forty-six slugs inside three inches at 100 yards, and the other four opened up the group to only 41⁄2 inches. I have not tried the new AccuTip slug on game, but I have seen what it will do to a block of ballistic gel. It's quite impressive. At present the new slug is available only in a 12-gauge, 23⁄4-inch loading.