I'm a new shooter and new user of the site, please forgive any mistakes.
My wife and I recently took up shotgun sports
- we're in the DFW area and we go to Elm Fork and shoot clays.
Its been fun so far.
We've rented some guns to get a feel for various gauges/actions/brands/sizes/etc.
Have rented at both Elm Fork and Alpine.
Our first rental was a 28 ga Beretta A400 - we thought that kicked wicked hard.
I in fact got a bruise from it (which, could be as much bad technique as anything).
Based on that experience, we decided to buy a .410 for the much lower recoil.
BassPro has a bunch of Franchi Aspire O/Us new in box for < $1k so we picked one up
- and, my wife really likes it.
I think that the Aspire doesn't fit me very well, and so now that we've shot over a
hundred rounds, we are looking to get another gun - 12 or 20 this time - and we only
intend to shoot clay sports. Also, we intend to only use the Winchester AA Low Recoil
Low Noise (980 fps) shells until such time as we feel we've got excellent fundamentals
and are ready to use the more standard 1200 fps shells.
Guns we've rented / shot:
12ga SuperNova - I thought it fit/shot well, surprised I didn't mind the weight (~ 15 shots)
20ga Beretta AL391 - wasn't a big fan, it didn't cycle the shells (no surprise).
20ga M2 Compact - cycled the shells, hard to tell much else, it was way too short.
20ga Weatherby SA08 Compact - didn't cycle the shells, hard to tell much else.
20ga Left Handed Remington 870 - didn't like and it didn't seem fit me well.
I do not like it when the recoil pad is noticeably curved or when the toe is pointy (at all).
Would love to rent other guns to try here in DFW - or borrow / etc - seems like we may
have already gone through all of the ones that are readily available.
Any suggestions on how / where to shoot other guns we have not yet tried?
Might there be other shooters in the area that might be willing to meet up and
make some sort of trade/arrangement to try out their guns for a few shots each?
Also - I've cut open at least one shell for each of the .410 loads we've been using,
and based on my counts, each of the shells is mislabeled in that - if it says its a load of
1/2 oz of #9 - I only get 240 pellets - and that seems like what you should get for #8.5.
This has been true of all the .410 shells that I've purchased (Remington, Winchester, etc).
Each of the shells seems to have a load appropriate for 1/2 a size down from marked.
Am I counting wrong? Is this unusual? Should I count some more and if they all turn out
that way should I write someone or file a complaint?
Looking forward to your responses!