I have heard there are a few states that only allow shotgun or Muzzleloaders for taking big game, illinois and new york come to mind. I was wondering why this is, or maybe these states do allow centerfires I dunno, but if they don't then why not. Here in utah there are a few hunts mainly doe or cow hunts that are shotgun or ML only and that is because it is usually fairly close to populated areas. So what is the purpose of limiting hunting to shotgun or ML???

You answered your question. Just to many people. Here in Indiana you can use a shot gun or hand gun. I use the TC in 30 Herret, 10" barrel, all so I use a 870. I use the 870 in the woods when I stalk hunt(out to about 75 yards) and the TC in a stand where I might have a shot to 200 yards. So far the longest shot I have had is 125 yards.

I'm from New Jersey, it's been shotgun (slugs & buckshot) for as long as I've been hunting, (1965). Muzzleloader is also used, from what I've been hearing from the state they aren't to keen on these "inline", but the're legal. High powered rifles are legal for ground hog hunting and .22 are legal for squirrel.



This state is way to populated to use rifle for deer, we can shoot alot of deer though, (6 bucks a season and as many does as you want to shoot)

Everyone has hit the nail on the head. Land for hunting is surrounded by houses. Delaware is a small State and large farm land and wildlife areas are not real big.

There is the perception that slugs are safer , but I think it's a bogus notion . Ia. is shotgun , with about the same terrain and pop. density as eastern Ne(which is rifle). Yet there doesn't seem to be any difference in the amount of shooting accidents in either state . The same could be said about southern Mn , which is shotgun , compared to eastern SD , which is rifle .



Then you have northern Mn , which is rifle , yet the population and density of houses is much greater in some of the lake and resort areas than the southern (and shotgun) open farming areas .



If anything , I believe the slugs are more dangerous , as they tend to richochet real easy.......

I think the thing that I don't understand is why a state would be totally shotgun or ML only. Certainly there has to be areas where a centerfire could be used. I don't understand why anyone would use a slug gun, With a little practice I could easily make shots on big game all day long with my ML shooting sabots, especially if I was allowed to use a scope like a 3x9 or the like.

sdgunslinger,

I have to agree with you about the slugs, there not the "chunks" of lead of yester-years, they do travel far, just like the muzzleloader bullets today, They are a rifle, but there legal to use in NJ.

There seems to be two reasons--small woodlots/dense populations and areas with more modest populations but open, rolling country where shots, theoretically, are more likely to carry.

At least that's how regulators think here in New York. Our rifle areas are quite extensive, covering both the Catskill and Adirondak areas, which generally feature steep hills and wooded terrain. A few very populated areas like Westchester County and a couple of urban areas upstate are bow only, while Long Island is bow plus a January shotgun season. The rest of the state, in some cases suburban to "dense rural", in other cases farmland, is bow/shotgun/handgun. My understanding is that the western part of the state's farmland is mostly pasture and cornfields, and bullets from a traditional deer rifle are thought to carry too far (though, interestingly enough, one may use any rifle for woodchuck, etc. outside the deer season with impunity).

As others have stated, this doesn't really seem too sensible these days, when a saboted slug or a bullet from a single-shot hunting handgun can outdo a lot of traditional northeastern rifles. Little Connecticut, denser than much of New York, is more liberal with regard to rifles, even if limiting their use (for deer) to private land.

Many game laws don't make sense. There are many states where a .25ACP "midnight special" would be a legal big game hunting gun and a 22-250 for example would not. My late dad always carried a .22 rimfire Colt Woodsman when hunting deer and one of it's purposes was to head shoot,at very close range, a downed deer that was still alive. That was probably illegal.
It's not only state laws that sometimes don't make sense,but federal as well. For example,dove,ducks,and geese being migratory birds,in any state you can have a maximum of three shells. If built to hold more,it must be plugged. I saw two young US Marines using borrowed shotguns to dove hunt that weren't plugged and it cost them $500 each. I have hunted dove for many years with a pump shotgun and have frequently used two shots(most I usually missed with both--but that's another post)but I don't recall ever using the third shot. I may have and don't recall but if I did it was rare and certainly would have never taken a 4th shot if it were available.
In smaller areas,restricting it to guns that don't carry as far would make sense,but legislating exactly what that would be would be difficult.

whiteeagle hit right on the head for ny.The belief of the flatter land compared to the mountains

MA and CT are both heavily populated but Western MA has more wild areas. MA does not allow rifles for deer hunting but CT does on private land 10 acres or more. This makes a huge difference to me as deer hunting with slug guns bores me. I have them but I am just not interested in them.

One state that may not allow rifles for deer hunting is Iowa? I have only driven thru Iowa a few times but it was one end to the other. There are zillons of acres of open land there and much of it is plenty hilly enough not that you need "hills" when there is almost nothing around anyway.

www.iowadnr.com/wildlife/pdfs/04deerturk.pdf

Cold Bore



If you've ever been around slug hunting much , you've many a time heard a slug go whistling over a hill after striking a side slope . They can richochet bad all right.



If the rifles are so much more dangerous , why are not eastern Nebraska and SD just like slaughterhouses during deer season ? There is absolutely no difference in the terrain or population density or hunting pressure compared to the shotgun only neighboring states .



Also , in Mn and Ia , that 30/06 (or a .375 H&H for that matter)is perfectly legal if you are shooting at a coyote or fox , and no one worries much about the safety.......go figure.

see SD has a similar reaction that I do, why is it shotgun or ML in all areas when there are many places that are perfectly safe to use centerfires, and why can centerfires be used on non game animals.

Yes , if you fire a weapon at a 30 degree angle into the air , of course the rifle bullet will travel alot farther than a slug , the question is , does this really increase the chances the projectile will hit something it shouldn't ? It is still only one bullet.



No one with a lick of sense goes round shooting their rifles up over the skyline anyways . And when a high velocity expanding rifle bullet hits something solid like the ground , it begans to upset and further range is quite limited.



I live amonst some pretty decent deer habitat , and at times on the opening dawn of the the SD deer season it sounds like WW 3 out there, yet I have not heard of one single accident locally . The last near serious accident I recall nearby was a couple years ago near Browns Valley MN. A young girl was riding horseback , and a man in his eighties using a shotgun with slugs , apparently mistook the horse for a deer and shot him right out from underneath the girl . This at nearly 300 yards and it killed the horse stone dead , if I recall right . The slugs have the potential to do serious damage out alot farther than many of their users think......

First off most of the laws go back to the days when muzzleloaders were basically a non-issue and the only shotgun slugs available were the ballistically challenged Foster type. From an enforcement standpoint it is much easier to pass a law for an entire state or region than to look at each individual loacation. I think the thought process was that in more populated areas you didn't have to worry about hunters attempting long shots because the slugs just were not effective beyond 100 yards. Modern sabot slugs and rifled barrels have certainly increased that. The development of inline muzzleloaders and sabots even more so. The question was asked why use a shotgun at all with the availability of modern muzzleloaders? I live in the shotgun/ML zone in Michigan and many hunters have done just that. The downside is you are limited to one shot and you have to clean them more frequently. I hunt with both. I use an 870 with a rifled barrel and a 1-4x Leupold. It will shoot 3" groups at 100 yards. For muzzleloader I prefer a traditional caplock with iron sights. Both are very effective on whitetails. I prefer centerfire rifles because I just like them but I have never felt handicapped using a modern slug gun.

Jeff