Suggestions for new hunter

You can't deer hunt with a 45ACP in IN anyway. IN's orange requirement is pretty minimal, a hat will do it, any more than that is up to you. (if I gun hunted public ground I would have more) Your bow with broadheads will cover archery season. For gun season you have several options:

1. A rifle in pistol type rounds the 357, 41 & 44 mags, 454, 45Colt for example.
2. A muzzleloader which could be used during gun and muzzleloader season. I'd go with the Savage smokeless with that option. This option deserve serious consideration.
3. A shotgun with slugs. I'd much prefer a rifled barrel with sabots if going this route. An advantage to this choice would be you could get 2 barrels and use this one to cover birds & rabbits as well.
4. Handgun. A large caliber revolver or my personal favorite; a T/C ENCORE! ;D (or Contender). This opens up many of the high power rifle rounds, although they do require some extra familiarization work, (ie you have to be willing to put in the extra practice time) and there is no dual purpose spot for them.

Your 10/22 will cover you for squirrels etc.

Guess it all depends on what else you want to hunt and how much you have to spend.

If you tell us where you live maybe someone can sort of mentor you.

If you will consider used shotguns for deer, I'd look for a Savage bolt action or a Mossberg 512 Slugmaster bolt action. I have the Mossberg and like it a lot. These are fully rifled barrels. If you get a pump gun, definitely look for a fully rifled barrel. The best ammo for rifled barrels will be some kind of Sabot slug (not a rifled slug, they are best in smooth bores), but you may have to try a few brands. My gun likes Winshester sabots, the BRI type, with a velocity of around 1400 fps. The faster slugs don't shoot as well in my gun.

Muzzleloaders are great fun, but may be more effort to clean and shoot than you'd want for a "beginner", but that's up to you. You'll get more hunting season with a muzzleloader as they can be used in the firearms season as well as the muzzleloader season.

Pump shotguns can be used with a smoothbore barrel, and you could hunt small game like rabbits, waterfowl and turkeys too.

You really can't go too wrong with buying a pump shotgun combo (they come with a bird barrel and a rifled barrel for slugs) like the Mossberg 500 or Remington 870. They are very versatile, and are a good value. If you choose to stick with hunting you can buy more specialty guns as you need/want them like a PCR rifle, a muzzleloader or a dedicated slug gun.

I'd shy away from the bolt shotguns since you're after a multipurpose shotgun. I have an 870 and 3 barrels for it. 28" vent rib with tubes, smooth bore with Williams Firesights and turkey choke tube and a rifled cantilevered barrel. With those three barrels there isn't much I couldn't cover except for long range varmitting. Like oldhoyt said you could start there and add other toys as you go. Ask Woody, which guns kept on running at the trap range during our last gathering.



Isn't that the truth! ;D

Be aware that if you are going to deer hunt, you will need a separte license for that based on which season/weapon you're going for, e.g. archery deer license or firearms deer license. You can pick up a hard copy of the IDNR Hunting & Trapping Guide at any Marsh or Wal-Mart, and those stores also sell the licenses, or you can purchase on on-line at the IDNR website.

Mossberg's are a good choice for a slug gun... I've had a Trophy Slugster 500 that's been whackin' deer since the mid-80's and never had a malfunction with it. To answer your question, a fully-rifled slug barrel has grooves inside which will grip the slug/sabot and spin it up, leading to improved accuracy at longer ranges over a smooth-bore barrels.

Although a lot of guys shoot them, I'm not a fan of the screw-in type rifled inserts (barrel that is otherwise smooth and only the end tube is rifled), and the general opinion is they won't stabilize a round as well as a fully rifled barrel.

Saboted slugs are supposed to be more accurate out of a rifled barrel.

Having said all that, PCR rifles are more expensive to buy, but cheaper to shoot than a slug shotgun, and won't have the recoil of the shotgun. The single shot Handi-rifles are less expensive than lever guns, and I've read on forums of guys that have those and do fine with them for deer. I picked up a Marlin 1894CB .44 mag last year, and have been very pleased with the performance, although have yet to put a deer in front of it.

Check local gun shops for used guns as an alternative to new, and places like the Indiana Gun Club northeast of Geist has a lot of used shotguns and some rifles there, and you can test shoot the shotguns.

I'm up in northern Hamilton County, and maybe we could get you up for a shooting session at some point in September if you want to check out some different type of guns or if you get one and need a spot to shoot. Will touch base with you on that later...

Welcome back to the hunting scene, and good luck in the field!

You can't go wrong with either the Mossberg 500 combo or the Remington 870 combo. You'll get a rifled deer slug barrel and a smooth bore barrel with choke tubes good for all other IN game animals except varmints all for around $300. If I had to limit myself to a single firearm, it would be one of these two.

Got the hunting guide and am studying it.

Place to hunt? I've been listing public hunting areas that aren't too horribly far away (closest seem to be Atterbury and Morgan-Monroe State Forest), but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to finding/getting permission to hunt on private land.