Effort to shoot slugs accurately in an air rifle

While not having tried slugs yet. I would have to say that it seems that it would require "more" effort to shoot slugs accurately. Especially if the gun/barrel was designed around shooting pellets. My PCPs shoots different brand pellets accurately. I wouldn't expect the same with different slugs. 

The window of success is much smaller for slugs than it is for pellets. The public expectations are much higher for slugs than pellets. The kool kids' all shoot slugs.

All in all, it is not a level comparison of unequal parts. IMHO a fool's errand to entertain the question.

I can hit a golf ball farther with my putter than I can with my seven iron. Does it make one "better" than the other??

Calling an air rifle a pellet gun might be leading people to come to a certain conclusion. Accidental?

I think it takes a bit more work no doubt, but with the BC and long range performance for me it's worth it. The process was enjoyable for me also.

My experience is its harder to get good accuracy with slugs. Between incremental changes to the reg, hammer spring, and fine tuning with the valve, slugs take more finesse in my experience.

Calling an air rifle a pellet gun might be leading people to come to a certain conclusion. Accidental?

I think it takes a bit more work no doubt, but with the BC and long range performance for me it's worth it. The process was enjoyable for me also.

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"Others seems to think that it takes no more effort to shoot slugs accurately from their pellet gun than it did for pellets."

"No more effort."

Feel free in providing a quote of the above. I'll be waiting.

I would think in this context, the term "pellet gun" would mean-

"Mass-produced airgun specifically designed to perform best using pellets(or in most cases, one specific pellet), with little/no idea/concern for performance using slugs as a projectile". Basically, airgun/barrel combos designed before the comparitavely recent rise in popularity of shooting slugs out of almost every mass-produced airgun.

But that's a mouthful, so I understand the abbreviation term of "pellet gun"

From what I’ve experienced it honestly depended on diameter of projectile then brand of gun. the barrel really. Tighter twists regardless of having a choke or not did better from 400fps to 900. I think it’s a twist to weight ratio. I think a22 lr is 1-16 , this could be why I’ve had good luck with Ed guns with the heavier slugs.


some guns were picky some were not 

fx dream line compact did terrible. Ed gun r5 shoots them better than any pellet. Airmaks katran shoots them really well just slow.

I look at them like shooting powder burners in the conical flat base loads. .22 or 30/30 45-70 type they will never be as accurate as a spritzer type. Sure with enough fiddling you can get them tight but...

I may need to try a heavier slug, but the ones I've been shooting are getting dime to nickle size groups at about all the ranges I shoot. Some keyhole a bit, some don't. The stability is probably from the seating, and using a single shot block seems to be more productive than a magazine.

I use a couple of pellets, H&N Hunters are just stupid accurate. The tip of my pinky finger groups at 10, 25, and 50 yards.

I like the weight of the slugs, and the KE that they offer, but the pellets are very close and more accurate. More enough? Probably not in the long run or for the critters I would need to use the extra weight, if it was needed at all.

I have got to stop tweaking this thing, it is giving great performance, but for some reason I find it difficult to leave well enough alone.

i think mainly its a cost thing .. for some people its ok to spend 5 times as much as a firearm to get some performance a cut above what a 'pellet gun' is ... rarely have i seen a serious use though, but theres some hunters and serious competition out there i can feel that .. nothing wrong with it either way, but the average person 'pesting' or plinking simply doesnt need all that .. in my own perspective i need something quiet and accurate enough to be highly effective around my rural home, tryingto grow a garden here and there and keeping chickens .. dont need a complicated 10 thousand dollar setup to be cool and impress the naives online lol .. the more simple the better .. does a slug have more energy sure it does .. so does simply a bigger gun ... buy one .. its easy ...

The engineer answer is it all depends! It really depends on the barrel honestly. Some barrel shoot both relatively well but that’s kinda rare but at the end of the day slugs need slug barrels and pellets need pellet barrels, right tool for the right job. Wrong tool for the job would result in a lot of frustration and much harder to achieve the desired results.


here are my personal/examples: 

1. Got my impact .25 with STX barrel and slugs won’t shoot well no matter what I tried so it was hard. Switched to slug A liner then the .250 slugs shot well but I wanted to shoot lighter slugs but it didn’t shoot those well however shot pellets amazing well. Then got superior heavy and pretty much all slugs shot well so it was super easy. I did add ernest Rowe’s carbine liner and it shoots any NSA slugs at worse 2 MOA on some settings and very often sub MOA at some settings, no doubt with some fine tuning and range time I can get sub MOA well pass 150 yards. 


2. my Maverick .22 compact with superior liner: shot slugs really well with just a bit of tuning so same level of effort or just as easy. Sub MOA all day at 100 yards on most of the settings/800-900+ FPE. Being light .22 the wind drift is a little more than the heavy .22 but still capable of sub MOA with sub 5mph wind. 



3. impact with superior .22 liner shot the 23 grain slugs exceedingly well with just a tune so just as easy too. Had MOA at 165 yards on a very calm day. 



3. Crown .177 shot the NSA .178 slugs pretty well at 34 yards with 1/3 inch group but have not stretched to 100 yards yet.


haven’t tried other brand of guns because it’s too hard to change barrel/caliber on them. 

I shot over 500 rounds tuning my gun, with a slug A liner so actually meant to shoot slugs, the first time. Much of that was my own fault though as I did not tighten my barrel well enough and it came loose, without me knowing, during the tuning process. I ran below my reg pressure once as well. The tuning went much better once I had these two things behind me.

So, in the end I would say that slugs are only slightly harder to tune for than pellets once you understand how the tuning procedure werqs in general.

Well to me there are too many variables just in production of a single brand let alone all brands to really quantify any results. But my daystate wolverine would not have been hard if it weren’t for having to tear apart the whole gun to get anything close to the velocity i wanted. My maverick sniper 22 was a piece of cake and my maverick compact 177 I’m still working on. This has been the hardest so far. My marauder 177 wasn’t too bad

The standard for accuracy and distance for said slugs is? What? MOA or better out to 100 yards? Shooting slugs "well" or, "exceedingly accurate" are not quantifiable statements. Numbers please.

The only reason I don't sell my Benjamin Kratos is because it shoots slugs well. Not just one, but I've had NSA 17.5's, JSB Knockout's and Daystate Howlers shoot well, all .217 versions. It shoots pellets well, but the slugs were a surprise. Veteran long, not so much, but it will shot about any pellet you put in it well. Still looking for a slug though. 

Well to me there are too many variables just in production of a single brand let alone all brands to really quantify any results. But my daystate wolverine would not have been hard if it weren’t for having to tear apart the whole gun to get anything close to the velocity i wanted. My maverick sniper 22 was a piece of cake and my maverick compact 177 I’m still working on. This has been the hardest so far. My marauder 177 wasn’t too bad

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sadly FX 177 barrels don’t have enough twist rate for slugs, they shoot slugs OK but not good enough. It’s pretty well known and I even test it today and the wind drift isn’t acceptable. Hope FX will come out with a superior heavy for 177 with a twist rate of 15 or lower then it would super simple again. So I’ve given up on slugs in FX .177 liners until they come out with a new version, hopefully soon. 



EDIT: I happily eat crow and withdrew my inaccurate information on the FX .177 lingers and slugs. 

I went and checked history of the wind and it was about 3-10 MPH and very gusty because all the trees and buildings. At first I saw the 1 inch/2cm wind drift and thought to myself this is not good enough! However I had some time to sit down and ran the numbers in strelok and OMG the slugs are hitting exactly where they supposed to hit. At 30 meters or 34 yards with 10MPH wind the wind drift is .7 Mil or 2 centimeter and the outer most POI is 2.1 centimeter to the right. So I'll happily eat crow and say the 12.5 grain slugs are shot with proper stabilization even though it's a little low when it comes to stability factor thank to the slow twist rate of 1:18, ideally I like to see 1:15 or 1:14. 

Here is the proof! 

I would think in this context, the term "pellet gun" would mean-

"Mass-produced airgun specifically designed to perform best using pellets(or in most cases, one specific pellet), with little/no idea/concern for performance using slugs as a projectile". Basically, airgun/barrel combos designed before the comparitavely recent rise in popularity of shooting slugs out of almost every mass-produced airgun.

But that's a mouthful, so I understand the abbreviation term of "pellet gun"

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Thanks Phil, always good to see a shooter with a clue..

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Sure, so are you asking about "Pellet guns"? Or air rifles that have been designed since the popularity of slug shooting? (Designed for both)

Is an impact with a superior liner a pellet gun even if it shoots slugs well? How about an edgun that shoots both well?

I'm sure you aren't talking about a fwb300 pellet gun.

Pellet gun or air rifles? Don't want to be accused of not having a clue.