Slug guns, like the Benelli Super Black Eagle II, have become increasingly popular with deer hunters throughout the country -- but relegating them only to deer hunting doesn't show their full versatility.

Wild hogs tend to be nomadic; they'll go wherever food sources dictate. Because hogs are omnivorous, however, that "food source" can be just about anything; from tubers and roots to grain fields and acorns; they'll devour fallen fruit and newly hatched turkey poults; they'll chew on carrion and come right up into your backyard to mow over your vegetable garden. They eat anything and everything, period.

Wild and free (and unbound by most fencing), hogs make for a wonderful game animal. Left unchecked, however, they quickly become a nuisance. Due to this obstinacy, farmers, ranchers and other land managers throughout the South, parts of the lower Midwest, the Southwest and California pursue hogs with vigor. Fortunately for us hunters, that means there is always opportunity to hunt them.

I've shot hogs with bows and bullets throughout California and Texas, and I'd thought I'd seen everything. That is, until I accepted an invite last fall from former Hunting staffer Joe Coogan. We were headed to South Texas, but Joe, who now lives on the East Coast and works for Benelli USA, suggested that I hunt with a slug gun--something I'd never done before. Joe wanted to film an episode of "Benelli On Assignment," which airs this fall on Versus, and for which he is the host. My using a slug gun would provide his viewers with a little different perspective on Benelli shotguns, and it would provide me with a different perspective on hog hunting.

Right here and now, I'd like to admit that I've had limited experience with slug guns as far as hunting goes. I've shot them on occasion, but never at game. That doesn't mean I've not had an interest in slug guns, or that I've not followed the progression of competency slug guns now exhibit. For one, it's part of my job to keep up on trends in hunting firearms. Secondly, I've spent my life studying hunting techniques and gear because hunting is what and who I am. My lack of experience with a slug gun in the field was the result of limited time and opportunity, and now, after having seen these tools in use, my interest has only been heightened.

Continual improvement in slug-gun projectiles has helped lead the popularity of slug-gun hunting. Modern slugs include, from left: Nosler Partition Gold, Hornady SST, an original BRI- style lead slug and a Barnes Expander.

Chicken Or The Egg?
As is often the case, ammunition has chopped open the path for the new technology we see on slug guns and slug-gun hunting. Shooting monstrous balls of lead gave shotgunners the opportunity to stop deer in their tracks, but accuracy with these "pumpkin balls" and smoothbore barrels was fleeting. Then the sabot and rifled shotgun barrels changed everything.

Shotgunning For Deer author, Dave Henderson, is an authority on slug guns. "It was in the early '80s that the technology started to change. BRI had the first sabot bullet, a one-ounce wasp-wasted slug designed by Bob Sowash," says Henderson. "These nose-heavy lead pellets were held in a plastic sleeve [which engaged the rifling] that split longitudinally as it exited the rifled barrel."

Designed originally for law enforcement purposes, these hourglass BRI slugs were eventually marketed to deer hunters, who by 1989 were buying Mossberg and Ithaca shotguns with rifled barrels right over the counter. According to Henderson, it was at this time that nearly every state in which shotguns could be used for deer hunting also legalized the use of sabot slugs and rifled barrels.