Advice for 2Barrel 20g.

Trekker said:

I am considering getting a double-barrel 20gauge, both for my own enjoyment as well as to have for when my younger sisters come visiting. There is no great hurry, so I am requesting advice for what make/model I should consider in my shopping, best place for shopping, and prices to expect.

The primary use is skeet and trap, with the possibility of hunting. I am quite pleased with the older fixed choke (full/improved modified) browning citori I currently have, and want equal or better handling/quality. It helps that my younger sisters rather liked my 12gauge, but found the weight and recoil to be a bit more than they liked the further we progressed through a session of trap. Thus, the consideration of a 20gauge to make things easier on my sisters.

I got my 12gauge used, and thereby with the fixed chokes, because I was just getting into skeet. I want the 20gauge to have changeable chokes so that it can be configured for skeet, trap, or hunting. Preference is for a wood stock rather than synthetic, mainly for aesthetics, but also since any hunting would be in woods/fields and not in marsh or on the water.

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Trekker said:

Well, I have a 12 gauge benelli sbeII for a gas gun, which certainly helps reduce the recoil from heavier loads. Still, for skeet especially, there are some functional preferences for not needing to go picking up shells. Also, my sisters and I grew up thinking shotguns were either double-barrel S/S or single-barrel bolt action, so while I have branched out some, they like to stick with what is familiar. My sisters tried the sbeII, but preferred the handling and appearance of my O/U. The youngest sister had a solid run of broken clays with the sbeII, but still preferred the feel/handling the citori.

I will probably want to talk with my sisters a bit more to find out what was more of an issue to them, recoil or weight. I suspect with the youngest sister that weight-forward, and weight-overall is the primary concern, and recoil a secondary concern. I took both sisters to camp perry for the small arms school's weekend M16 rifle course, and the youngest was miffed that she was initially out-shooting her older sister by a good margin, but then the 20" barrel tired out her forward arm and her 9's turned into 5's. When my sisters and I do some autumn trap at our grandfather's place, with a double-barrel 12 gauge and 20 gauge available, both sisters want to use the 20 gauge.

So, while a 20 gauge gas gun could offer benefits to weight or recoil, weight by moving from two barrels to one and downsizing from 12 gauge to 20 gauge, and recoil by running a gas system and downsizing from 12 gauge to 20 gauge, I think both sisters still want run with a a S/S or O/U. The one time a neighbor joined in at our autumn trap session and brought a pump shotgun, both my sisters and I had short-stroking issues from inexperience when trying for doubles. While that can be corrected with practice, I think my sisters are retaining their first impression that pumps aren't dependable.

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