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For other meanings, see Slug (disambiguation)
A slug is a term used for a solid ballistic projectile. It is "solid" in the sense of being composed of one piece; the shape can vary widely, including partially hollowed shapes. The term is occasionally applied to bullets (just the projectile, never the cartridge as a whole), but is most commonly applied to shotgun projectiles, to differentiate from shotshells.
Shotgun slugs
Shotgun slugs were introduced by Wilhelm Brenneke in 1898. Most shotgun slugs are designed to be fired through a smoothbore barrels, which means that they must be self-stabilizing and capable of passing through a choked barrel.
Much later shotguns were produced with rifled barrels, and slugs were designed to be fired from them with spin stabilisation. As these specialised "shotguns" were far more accurate than a smoothbore gun, they also usually featured greatly improved sights. Many of these slugs used saboted sub-caliber projectiles, which resulting in greatly improved external ballistics performance.
See also
"Slug (projectile)"