postban
aka Johnny Rifleseed, spreading gunliness
Started a few other rifle threads and have to do justice for my second favorite weapon, the shotgun.
Does not matter how small your gun collection is but it must contain one or more, simply the most useful and essential of firearms.
There are many different types of action styles;
Bolt Action
Single shot break barrel
Over/Under
Side by Side
Shotgun/Rifle combos
Pump
Semi-auto including gas operated, recoil operated or inertia driven
Muzzle loading
and even revolver:eek5:
I have owned a lot of them, couple dozen actually. My current favorites are the Benelli Semi Auto M1 or Montefeltro's. Very light, utterly reliable and come with the ability to be adjusted to fit the shooter. They use thin plastic shims between the receiver and the buttstock to angle the later to fit the face/body of the shooter. Since the eye is actually the rear sight on a shotgun this is critical. Beretta and browning also offer this ability along with one of the new Mossbergs. Most other guns are hit or miss if they fit you or not.
The Benelli action has fewer moving parts, cleans easier and needs the cleaning less frequently to maintain that reliability. They are more pricey than Remingtons and Mossbergs among others but if you had been able to have my experience shooting them you would probably agree. (Big IF there, I know)
Most of the usefulness of a shotgun is dependent on what you use it for.
I use my guns for shooting small game (squirrels, rabbits, grouse, woodcock), clay targets (sporting and skeet), slugs for deer and fixed distance target shooting (turkey shoot stlye).
For me that requires three different guns. I use the above mentioned Benelli M1 or Montefeltro 12ga/20ga for small game, upland birds or clays. For slugs/deer hunting I use a scoped Remington 1187 12ga and for turkey shoots I use a highly modified Remington 870.
My current Benellis are in addition to a previous collection of them I have sold down over the years.
M1 Super90 Tactical -sold
M1 Super90 Practical -sold
Nova pump -sold
Montefeltro 12ga -sold
M1 Super90 Field 12ga -current
Montefeltro 20ga Youth -current
One for me and one for my 11yr old son.
For deer my Remington 1187 has a Cantilever smoothbore barrel with a rifled choke and low-powered variable scope. This has been very effective with virtually everything I have pointed it at being cleanly and quickly killed. Tough for them to keep motoring with 72cal through and through holes in the vitals. It is very accurate too having shot numerous small groups like this at 100yards;
Quite a few proper deer rifles cannot equal that, I know cuz I have owned some of them
For info on my turkeyshoot shotgun see this thread;
http://www.motownmuscle.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54639
Basic principles of shotguns.
Throw a pattern of a specific sized bunch of little lead or steel (or other material) balls at a target. You can vary the size of the little balls (called shot), you can vary the pattern (using chokes or amount of barrel constriction at the muzzle) and you can vary the amount or speed of the shot as well.
The guage of a shotgun is a description of its inside bore diameter. 12ga means 0.729 nominal diameter. The reason it is a "12" is if you had 12 balls made of lead that were 0.729 dia they would add up to one pound in weight. Same goes for other guages. 20 balls of "0.615 dia equal one pound and make a 20guage, make sense?
You can also use full diameter projectiles called slugs for heavy game. Slugs have been used to kill every one of the big five dangerous game in Africa and also every sized critter on this continent from squirrel to polar bear.
How chokes work with shotshells;
Pretty simple, squeeze the shot closer together as they exit the muzzle. Too much or too little has negative effects. Most older guns have fixed chokes and you would buy a whole barrel to change constriction. Current or recently made shotguns will come with screw-in chokes so you can change constriction much easier.
Depiction of shotstring;
This image shows the cloud of shot and how it would appear in 3d space. Most people assume all the shot exits the muzzle and goes toward the target as a great flat lead pancake of bb's. It is acually quite long, normally from 6 to 12 FEET long. It is traveling approx 1200 fps so it appears to hit all at the same time but does not. A tighter choke usually will elongate a shotstring, looser will shorten it.
A good site to learn about shotguns is www.shotgunworld.com
Post up pics and discuss shotguns!
Does not matter how small your gun collection is but it must contain one or more, simply the most useful and essential of firearms.
There are many different types of action styles;
Bolt Action
Single shot break barrel
Over/Under
Side by Side
Shotgun/Rifle combos
Pump
Semi-auto including gas operated, recoil operated or inertia driven
Muzzle loading
and even revolver:eek5:
I have owned a lot of them, couple dozen actually. My current favorites are the Benelli Semi Auto M1 or Montefeltro's. Very light, utterly reliable and come with the ability to be adjusted to fit the shooter. They use thin plastic shims between the receiver and the buttstock to angle the later to fit the face/body of the shooter. Since the eye is actually the rear sight on a shotgun this is critical. Beretta and browning also offer this ability along with one of the new Mossbergs. Most other guns are hit or miss if they fit you or not.
The Benelli action has fewer moving parts, cleans easier and needs the cleaning less frequently to maintain that reliability. They are more pricey than Remingtons and Mossbergs among others but if you had been able to have my experience shooting them you would probably agree. (Big IF there, I know)
Most of the usefulness of a shotgun is dependent on what you use it for.
I use my guns for shooting small game (squirrels, rabbits, grouse, woodcock), clay targets (sporting and skeet), slugs for deer and fixed distance target shooting (turkey shoot stlye).
For me that requires three different guns. I use the above mentioned Benelli M1 or Montefeltro 12ga/20ga for small game, upland birds or clays. For slugs/deer hunting I use a scoped Remington 1187 12ga and for turkey shoots I use a highly modified Remington 870.
My current Benellis are in addition to a previous collection of them I have sold down over the years.
M1 Super90 Tactical -sold
M1 Super90 Practical -sold
Nova pump -sold
Montefeltro 12ga -sold
M1 Super90 Field 12ga -current
Montefeltro 20ga Youth -current
One for me and one for my 11yr old son.
For deer my Remington 1187 has a Cantilever smoothbore barrel with a rifled choke and low-powered variable scope. This has been very effective with virtually everything I have pointed it at being cleanly and quickly killed. Tough for them to keep motoring with 72cal through and through holes in the vitals. It is very accurate too having shot numerous small groups like this at 100yards;
Quite a few proper deer rifles cannot equal that, I know cuz I have owned some of them
For info on my turkeyshoot shotgun see this thread;
http://www.motownmuscle.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54639
Basic principles of shotguns.
Throw a pattern of a specific sized bunch of little lead or steel (or other material) balls at a target. You can vary the size of the little balls (called shot), you can vary the pattern (using chokes or amount of barrel constriction at the muzzle) and you can vary the amount or speed of the shot as well.
The guage of a shotgun is a description of its inside bore diameter. 12ga means 0.729 nominal diameter. The reason it is a "12" is if you had 12 balls made of lead that were 0.729 dia they would add up to one pound in weight. Same goes for other guages. 20 balls of "0.615 dia equal one pound and make a 20guage, make sense?
You can also use full diameter projectiles called slugs for heavy game. Slugs have been used to kill every one of the big five dangerous game in Africa and also every sized critter on this continent from squirrel to polar bear.
How chokes work with shotshells;
Pretty simple, squeeze the shot closer together as they exit the muzzle. Too much or too little has negative effects. Most older guns have fixed chokes and you would buy a whole barrel to change constriction. Current or recently made shotguns will come with screw-in chokes so you can change constriction much easier.
Depiction of shotstring;
This image shows the cloud of shot and how it would appear in 3d space. Most people assume all the shot exits the muzzle and goes toward the target as a great flat lead pancake of bb's. It is acually quite long, normally from 6 to 12 FEET long. It is traveling approx 1200 fps so it appears to hit all at the same time but does not. A tighter choke usually will elongate a shotstring, looser will shorten it.
A good site to learn about shotguns is www.shotgunworld.com
Post up pics and discuss shotguns!
