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Dove shotgun....12 or 20 ga.?
Dove Hunting by Charley Dickey, 1976, states that the novice dove hunter should have a 12 ga. since doves are so terribly hard to hit anyway. You don't have to carry far for dove since you shoot from a stool usually. Do you believe this to be true?
I fancy a Benelli Nova or SuperNova pump. Either can be had with field barrels in either gauge. A 20 is just lighter to carry and kicks less. I suppose a 12 won't kick bad with dove or skeet loads. I'd prefer a 20 for flushing birds as quail and pheasant. You certainly need a 12 with heavy hunting loads for ducks.
What do you think?
I fancy a Benelli Nova or SuperNova pump. Either can be had with field barrels in either gauge. A 20 is just lighter to carry and kicks less. I suppose a 12 won't kick bad with dove or skeet loads. I'd prefer a 20 for flushing birds as quail and pheasant. You certainly need a 12 with heavy hunting loads for ducks.
What do you think?
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Replies
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
"If you get it and didn't work for it, someone else worked for it and didn't get it..."
Speaking only theoretically, to me a 16 ga. is ideal back when they were built on the 16 frame. When the fell out of favor with the rise of the 20, the firearms makers (in affordable models) used 12 ga. frames for 16 ga. guns. Bad fit and ungainly.
I don't think a 16 outperforms a modern 20, and ammo is a bit more expensive for 16s, but still...
Picking a shotgun for ANYTHING is akin to picking a wife. You will find love and then you will adapt. The right shotgun is the one that fits YOU best, you can shoot the best and with the least amount of recoil for extended shooting sessions if that’s the game, which dove tends to be.
The Shooter is 98% of the equation and one thing to consider is that as a rookie you will miss A LOT. Misses with game loads of 20 ga, especially cumulative in a short period of time, are a lot less painful and with today’s 20 ga loads you are missing very little over the 12 ga on smaller birds. Also a lot of folks find the smaller framed 20s more “lively” which is a term you will need to define on your own. Now if you were hunting geese my advice would be different...
I personally hunt with a O/U 12 ga. with 1 1/8 ounce 7-8 shot. Because that's what I like. At one time, I was able to take a limit with one box of shells. When I was hunting a lot. My best was 15 birds with 18 shells, I believe. But I probably couldn't even get close to that now.
Also, down here, there are a lot of Eurasian doves. There is no limit on them here. I've found that they can be much harder to knock down that Mourning or White Wing doves. So having a little more "punch" works better for me.
I've had one O/U a long time ago, a Beretta BL3, I believe it was. I was in the Army and went to the Post Skeet Range at Ft. Polk, LA. I don't think Sporting Clays had been invented then...1970 or so. An instructor took me around the course, telling me how to lead, etc. with a 1100. I hit like 21 or so, and thinking I was a natural, I ordered a gun from the Rod & Gun Club, the BL 3 12 ga. And the first time I shot at a dove, not on a dove field, I dusted it. It was coming head on. Hey! I thought "I'm bad!"
But that was it. One for one, No more doves came over and shortly after that, I moved away, got married, needed money and sold the gun. I wanted another shotgun, a SxS (traditionalist) and got an Ithaca, Japanese made and a fine gun. No dove fields in my area I could afford to go to, and I lost the gun in a divorce. A 12 also.
Long time between dove fields and longer between dove guns. About 12 years ago, I was invited to a Dove Shoot on a genuine dove field, first and only time for that. I only had a 870 cylinder bore 12, shot a box of shells, one bird. Pathetic. Then 10 years ago, I saw a Connecticut Valley RBL on display and fell in love, sold a couple of guns, and became the proud owner of a fine 20 ga. Shot Clays a couple of times a week and was getting better at it until the course went bust. Stuck with a dove gun, but no place to shoot it, but it could be worse,
A few years ago, a guy brought in a Darne, a decidedly weird French made SxS in 16 ga. (which is uncommon in the US) into my LGS. It was attractively priced, and you don't see them often over here. I'd first seen one in Viet Nam, a little higher grade one than mine, I believe. So now I have two dove guns and no place to shoot them.
Life is still good.
As far as recoil, the actual load being used matters as well. A 7/8 oz load will not recoil as much as a 1 1/8 load. But, all that being said, a field load will not produce as much felt recoil as a standard buckshot load. Buy a box of 1 1/8 oz, 2 3/4" shells and try them out of your 870. A good field gun SHOULD be more comfortable. So if you're cool with them out of your 870, you've learned something you can apply to a good field gun. If you find them uncomfortable or if you just decide to go with a 20 ga, go for it.
For bird hunting, learning how to shoot is the critical part. Being able to put the shot cloud where the bird will be when it gets there is the key. If you can do that, a 12,16 or 20 will all do the job. Watch the bird, not the gun and keep the gun moving (follow through). More misses are due to stopping the gun or watching the bead on the barrel rather than focusing on the bird than anything else. Learn lead based on distance and speed of the bird. It's a learned skill that some people take to more naturally than others...
But even shooting light 12ga loads, when I take a new shooter to Shoot Trap I normally try to limit them to one 25 shot round on day one because even with the ultra light target loads they WILL feel it next day.
Not to take anything away from anyone, but I’d take Orchid’s advice in a heartbeat. He knows what he’s doing. As do the others, of course...
Out of everything in shooting sports and hunting, I can’t keep from being be in awe of a good wing shooter. The whole thing is an art form and beautiful when done right.. this ol’ redneck just got lucky and did ok now and then. The guys who know their stuff are cool to watch.
I like the higher pellet count, and run a full choke - the intent being to have birds be either entirely missed or rapidly dead.
Recoil is more a factor of the load and the weight of the gun than the bore diameter. There are hot 20's and light 12's, but a 20 will never have the upper threshold.
There are lighter and whippier 12's if that's your thing. The 12 gauge Nova, as I remember it anyway, is a poorly balanced club, but the 20 version was significantly better. There's a lot of ways to play with the balance of a shotgun: steel receiver, aluminum receiver, playing with the taper on the barrel walls, barrel length, density of whatever the stock is made out of - - so it's not really fair to apply the blanket statement of "20's are just livelier".
FWIW, I ran a Mossberg 500 as my dove gun the last two seasons I went and found that the tang safety is a lot easier for on and off quickly; the large ejection port is GREAT for chamber loading when you're empty; and not having the flappy shell carrier of a Model 12, 870, Nova, etc... hanging down in your loading port when the bolt is forward makes feeding the magazine quickly a breeze.
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
As for doves: I have no shame and want all the shot in the air I can get. Gimme the 12 GA.
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.