well... I did some more testing with my IAI lever action over the weekend...
... a couple of interesting things happened...
I got the new sights adjusted for 50 yards with the mini slugs...
... then the gun "fell apart"
... the tube mag support slid forward on the barrel... the wood forend slid forward about 1/4"... they must have used thinner bolts than the dimpled holes between the barrel & mag tube would hold in place... I'm not sure if he screws loosened up... but I tightened up alot of the action bolts as well, so my guess is that they didn't use any thread locker on any of the bolts...
one interesting result of my gun "falling apart", is that I was into my shooting, & didn't notice the changes to the gun... only that my gun suddenly was not on the paper... it was at that point... I thought I better check for a squib, that I noticed the tube support off the end of the mag tube... it took quite a bit of force to hold the barrel & tube together close enough to slide the support back into place.... so what was happening, was they seperated after the support slid off, & the slugs were going high... the intersting thing, was that one of the slugs hit & went clear through one of the barrels at 100 yards... IMO, if the slug has the energy to go clear though both sides of a steel 55 gallon drum at 100 yards, it's likely going to be effective on deer to at least close to that distance... I wouldn't think twice about the power level of the mini slug at 75 yards for either human self defense, or deer hunting
BTW... my buddy will be pulling apart the gun this week... we found the lifting fork begins to drop, as the acton is cycled, just before the mini shell enters the barrel mouth... so if at all possible, he'll need to make a custom part to replace one of the links in the action, to time it slightly different, to allow feeding of the minis... then add a block, as we discussed earier... so at this point, it's questionable weather the lever will be able to feed the mini's or not... but with IMO, the power of the mini's being acceptable, if the action can be reworked as a dedicated mini gun... we'll go ahead & do it...