I have a 20 yr old Mossberg 500 with the Mossberg cantilever mount rifled barrel and cheapy 2.5x fixed scope. Im shooting Federal Fusion sabot slugs.

I had about a 3in spread at 50 yards shooting off a makeshift rest.

I know some of it was shooter related but is this an acceptable group? This will be a deer slug gun out to maybe 75 yrds.

Never had a slug[old remington type] group worth a shit.
Now the winchester sabot slug type are dinner plate at a hundred with my old winchester.

Have you tried any other loads?

I would think you should be able to slightly better than that if you can work out the best combo.

You mention the scope is a 'cheapy' so that makes me wonder some more. Also - is it securely mounted?

Even if that is the best you ever achieve - I bet it gets the job done when you employ it in the field.

=================================

I haven't tried them (I use rifles for hunting) but someone who has told me that the Hornady FTX Slug grouped great for them.
If you're limited to shotguns due to laws, it might be worth a try.

As Sig209 said, Even if that is the best you ever achieve - I bet it gets the job done when you employ it in the field.

Rifled barrel or smooth? Sabots and smooth bores generally don't play well together.

If you're trying to shoot groups with a slug gun (even though it may not be realistic to follow up shots while hunting) the secret is to shoot r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w-l-y.
Like a minimum of five minutes between shots. No joke.

I think the accuracy you are seeing is a bit low for a rifled barrel and sabot load. That's about what I see from my 18.5" smooth bore IC barrel with iron sights. I recently shot some 1 oz Remington Sluggers and Remington 1 oz Managed recoil rifled slugs and saw 2" groups with the high power load and 1.5" with the Managed Recoil loads. This was at 30 yards. Rifled barrels with the newfangled sabot loads are said to much more accurate. As suggested, you might check your scope to see if it isn't wandering on you.

BTW, even those so called reduced power loads are like shooting an elephant gun. Not something you want to do all afternoon for sure.

For me that would be completely acceptable. I'd maybe shoot some other ammo to see if its better but that's good enough for the job at hand.

I wanted to minimize experimenting with different rounds. The federal fusions are already $2 a shot. Im $30 in just trying to get it dailed in to this point. I picked because they were available locally. I dont have much of a sabot selection around here.

Im sure there are so adjustments I could make to the scope. The scope is the one included with the cantilever barrel package. It doesnt even have a brand label.

The more I think of it, I really dont want to invest much more into the slug gun. I think its going to be good enough for my purpose.

I can reliably hit a 6 inch paper plate at 50 yards with a smooth bore 870 and Federal Tru-Ball. I would try to fine tune the adjustments on your scope a little bit to improve accuracy.

I was getting about 2.5in out of my Abolt II at 100 yards. Only tried 1 load. That avg was acceptable to me so I didnt care to spend a fortune in ammo hoping to squeeze another inch out of it. I wouldnt shoot it past 150 anyways.