Thanks for the help
On my dove gun bleg. I’ve hunted dove off and on my whole life. We have a really great spot to go. I just haven’t owned a shotty in so long, I wanted something different. Last times I went, I borrowed a gun. I figured if I had my own, I’d go more. Based on comments, definitely getting the 12. Now, I’m mulling over the Beretta and the Remington.
Thanks.
July 29th, 2014 at 8:55 pm
I am not sure if Remington shotguns come off the same line as 700s, but I would be twitchy about one regardless.
July 29th, 2014 at 9:14 pm
Beretta O/U. It will become an Heirloom.
Skeet Shooters preferred Remington 1100 / 870 to the tune of millions of shots cumulatively when I was an active competitor. The alleged problems with the 700 RIFLES is not a valid concern.
July 29th, 2014 at 9:31 pm
Check out the CZ 712 Utility with adjustable stock. Love mine.
July 29th, 2014 at 10:58 pm
Your two narrowed down choices are win/win. Flip a coin.
I like the old Auto-5, but it didn’t make your short list.
July 29th, 2014 at 11:23 pm
Not to belabor the obvious, SamW, but there is nothing “alleged” about a 700 arriving at my FFL, new from the Remington factory, with a bolt covered in rust, much less the two months it took Remington to not fix the problem.
July 29th, 2014 at 11:53 pm
Nothing beats an O/U in 20g for weight or safety. Since I bring noobs and my own dogs for birds, it’s nice to simply break open the gun and set it down to care for my dogs or help someone out. No question if it’s loaded or if the safety is on – if it’s open, it’s safe.
Warning – shotgun snobbery ahead:
You said you wanted a gun for $700. Any O/U Beretta worth considering starts at $6k and always ends with the designation “EELL”.
All that said, a commenter in the other tread had the right of it. If you can land a Beretta 390 or a AL391 for under $700 you’re golden. I hunted fowl with and AL391 for years until I got my dogs. Now it’s my loaner gun for noobs who’ve never hunted pheasant or chukar. It’s light weight, easy to clean, reliable, and the semi auto recoil reduction makes it pleasant to shoot.
July 30th, 2014 at 12:31 am
What I like the most about the 390 is how simple the gas system is. There are some gas semi-autos that have either too many smaller pieces that you can lose easily in the field when/if you want to clean the gas system, or their gas system requires tools to disassemble completely.
The 390 has four parts, all pretty good sized, in the gas system. All you do is unscrew the front knob on the foreend, pull the foreend off, then pull the barrel and the parts are right there. It is really that simple.
Unlike the A5, there’s no requirement to play with the recoil buffer rings for light or heavy loads. The magazine cut-off allows you to single-load the gun by just dropping a shell on the carrier and hitting the button on the right side of the receiver.
What Beretta thought they had to improve over the 390 really escapes me. I’ve seen the insides of the 391 (I’m a gunsmith) and with the 391, you need tools again to clean the gas system. To me, the 390 is as close to a perfect field gun as I could imagine. Simple, reliable, easy to clean, light, easy-recoiling, durable, etc. I own lots of shotguns, but when there’s hunting in rough terrain to be done, all the ‘pretty’ guns stay home and the 390 comes out. Mine’s been dropped down the side of a mountain and it looks the part. It still works like a Swiss watch.
July 30th, 2014 at 10:12 am
I have been shooting doves for years, many decades, here in Texas and I got serious about it 20 years ago. We have a group of 20 some guys who gather in Brownwood every year to shoot doves and it is a great experience every year. We even have five guys who have aged out, gotten crippled and blind who no longer shoot but they come along for the dining and visiting with our High Plains Shooting and Dining Society – http://hpsds.com. Here are a few observations I have about dove hunting having done almost everything wrong once or twice except for safety stuff and no alcohol until the guns are cased back up. Never compromise on safety because you don’t want to be a Dick and lawyers are not really in season in Texas.
Most of our guys use 12 ga. and I think it might help bring down an extra bird or two. I have used a 30 in. barrel Beretta 686 o/u for the past 14 years and it does OK with skeet and skeet chokes and 7 1/2 shot. Modern shells hold tighter patterns further out than the old paper shells that smelled so good when we shot them. Number 8 is a great shot size but we have mostly white wing doves now and they seem to be bigger and tougher to bring down so I use 7 1/2.
I also like the Beretta 390 and some of our older guys who are kind of crippled up have borrowed my wife’s 390 20 ga. youth model because it works well sitting in a chair. Our Texas dove hunting is done by stationing hunters at wide intervals around a large sun flower field and shooting them as they come in to feed or shooting over a farm tank (pond). We don’t move around much and lot of the shots are pass shooting so the weight and size of the gun don’t matter as much as quail and pheasant shooting. We also carry small coolers into the field to put the birds on ice as we shoot them.
I also recommend several rounds of skeet or sporting clays during the weeks leading up to you dove hunt just to get back into the groove or if you are new to shotgunning you can work on some basic skills without the pressure of the hunt. After several years of poor shooting in the early 90’s when I decided to become more active about dove hunting I took some lessons and joined a low level skeet team shooting every week and that helped me a lot. Of course with dove hunting even if you don’t have time to shoot at all you might not hit as many doves but you will have a great time.
So to sum up, if you have only one shotgun I would go with a 12 ga. and if you have a decent semi-auto just make sure that it is cleaned up, lubricated properly with a fairly open choke and a plug that limits the shells to three. Federal laws on migratory birds say three shells only and read up and follow all the game laws for your area and then show up and have a good time, as long as you are a safe hunter with good sportsmanship manners you really can’t do things wrong.
July 30th, 2014 at 10:53 am
My old man has a Beretta 391, and I have to say that it is the tits. He got a screaming deal on his, via gunbroker, but man, it is a really nice piece of hardware. That said, if I had to spend my own dollars on it, it’d probably be an 1100 or 1187. I am a cheap bastard, though.
July 30th, 2014 at 10:55 am
The new beretta a300 outlander is also very nice. Its a wonderful shotgun for the money, and you can easily get one for under $700.
July 30th, 2014 at 11:32 am
Hey Unc…
While you’re out and about town, why not stop in and see the CZ shotty I have in the store?
We’re in Oak Ridge, on the west end. Come in off of Pellisippi onto Illinois, hook a left on OR Tpk, and we’re about a mile and a half on the right. Sign out on the strip center marquis says *Guns and Ammo*. (If you pass the Domino’s and Subway, you went too far.)
We open around 2PM, and stay open till 8PM. I’ll be in-store this afternoon from 6 to 8…will be away on business Thurs-Sun, but the wife will be running the place while I’m gone.
July 30th, 2014 at 11:34 am
At the very least, send me an e-mail or text (875-240-1625) with the make/moddel/bbl length you are considering, and let me toss you an out-the-door price. I’m willing to bet I can save you a little bit of money compared to most gun stores in the Knoxville metro area…
July 30th, 2014 at 2:10 pm
For a loaner shotgun, you might want to consider the size of the person. My father’s Browning Auto was too heavy for me, when I first started tagging along with him on pheasant hunts in PA. I was probably under 100 lbs, and it would knock me on my ass, when I would shoot at targets he would set up. I was leaning back to balance the weight, I think (topped out at 115 lbs in my mid-teens). When I hit 12, he started bringing home single shot 12’s and 16’s, since I could get a hunting license. The lighter weight made all the difference, even with the resulting recoil. I rarely hunted with the same gun twice, as dad was always buying and trading guns, pre ’68. (Loved that left-handed bolt action 12, but the barrel turned out to be bent, sigh…)
July 30th, 2014 at 6:52 pm
MR.Linoge: Sir, the topic was Dove hunting shotguns.
July 31st, 2014 at 5:29 pm
Beretta or Benelli shotguns require less maintenance then Remmingtons (autoloaders anyways).