Shotguns

NSSF's Dave Miles takes a look at the popular and rapidly growing sport of three-gun shooting with Tom Fuller of Bushnell during the AR15.com/Rockcastle 3-gun Pro AM held at Rockcastle Shooting Center at Park Mamoth Resort in Park City, KY.

(GunReports.com) -– Mossberg has introduced the 500 Thunder Ranch Shotgun, a 12-gauge shotgun designed in conjunction with personal defense instructor Clint Smith.

To qualify for a Franchi shotgun rebate of $100 or $200, shooters must purchase a new Franchi I-12 or Renaissance shotgun from an Authorized Franchi Dealer between January 18 and November 30, 2011.

Advanced Technology International, aka ATI, a manufacturer of gun stocks and firearm accessories, has developed the New Triton adaptor System, allowing shooters to easily mount stocks with no special tools, only an allen or torque wrench.

Watch as Larry Potterfield, Founder and CEO of MidwayUSA shows how to safety handle a gun on the sporting clays field. The proper use of eye and ear protection is covered as well as using the correct ammunition. Safe gun handling is emphasized with specific examples unique to the sporting clays field.

Both the side-by-side hammer guns and the pump-action hammer guns of old left a distinct mark in history and are now resurfacing in the form of replicas finding favor at shooting competitions across the country. The popularity of the simple and easy-to-handle shotguns is also growing among people interested in home-defense firearms.For a trip back to the past, Gun Tests selected a side-by-side to see if there is any advantage or downside—other than the number of shots—to an Old West style shotgun. The test shotgun was a Cimarron T.T.N. Model 1878 Coach Gun 12 Gauge Side-by-Side carrying a price tag of $480 in the new gun rack at Dury’s Gun Shop in San Antonio.

Dropping a dove without retrieving it is both poor form and wasteful. If the friendly neighborhood game warden is in the area, such unsportsmanlike conduct might also get you cited for "waste of game."

When you have managed to knock a bird out of the sky with a well-placed pattern of shot, watch the bird fall all the way to the ground and keep your eye on that spot.

Focus on any identifiable landmark - a clump of tall grass, a bush, a telephone pole or fence post that is in direct line with the fallen bird and immediately walk to that spot.

Don't take your eyes off the spot. Don't shoot another bird and don't look down to load your shotgun. Retrieving that bird is your first and only mission.

Unlike crossing birds where swing through and shooting well in front of the doves is necessary, an incomer requires a touch of finesse.

(GunReports.com) -- Watch as Larry Potterfield, Founder and CEO of MidwayUSA, demonstrates the basic safety and operational features of pump, semi-automatic and break-open shotguns.

The Gun Tests staff tested the Benelli Super Black Eagle II No. 10016, $1515. The 12-gauge gun featured a back-bored (.735-inch interior diameters compared to the 12-gauge nominal .729) barrel, stepped ventilated ribs, three-shot magazine, cross-bolt safety and a smooth, crisp trigger.It came with classy plastic case befitting a 4-digit retail shotgun, with molded impressions to fit the various gun parts, choke tubes and wrenches.

(GunReports.com) -- New GunReports.com Videos: 1: In this video from the NRA Annual Meetings in Pittsburgh, Kevin Winkle of GunReports.com interviews Angela Leslie, assistant marketing manager of long guns for Beretta. She details features on the A400 Explor, a new 3.5 inch semiauto shotgun. 2: In this video from the NRA Annual Meetings in Pittsburgh, Kevin Winkle of GunReports.com interviews Colt Marketing Manager Michael Guerra on the rebirth of the Colt Mustang PocketLite, not made since the 1990s. 3: Kevin Winkle of GunReports.com interviews Phil Schrier, senior curator of the National Firearms Museum at the NRA Annual Meeting.

A recent Gun Tests magazine review asserted there are two sides to the competitive shooting coin; one side is the challenge of being the best you can be and the other side is just being able to have a little fun. Picking the right shooting tool to handle both sides of this coin has become a lot easier with the availability of a good number of quality, fine-handling 20-gauge semiautomatics. These small-gauge shotguns provide the shooter with a lighter, quicker target-busting tool that also carries the freight in the field during bird-hunting sessions. For the magazine's field test, the staff selected the Benelli Cordoba, $1500.

The nearly unquestioned champion of home defense is the shotgun, which provides power, capacity, and hall-clearing firepower when youre the only one standing between some zombies and your loved ones. Unlike in concealed carry, where portability is extremely important, the home shotgun can stand magazine-loaded but in a safe condition in a corner, waiting to answer whatever bad news the night brings in on size 13 boots.Assuredly, the plugged-for-ducks pumpgun can do double duty in this role, offering three shots of No. 4s, but 5 or 7 or 12 handy shots are better, most would agree, so a certain tactical design comes to the fore.Many consumers love the Remington 870 pump shotgun both as a field product or as a tactical shotgun. We have tested and rated many of them very highly. This round we wanted to take an 870 that had good basic appeal and see if adding some stuff to it would make it better.Toward that end, we looked back nearly six years and found an 870 that earned a Buy It rating, but which lost ground to the test winner in part because of its stock. In the September 2005 issue, we tested the Remington Model 870 Express Magnum Synthetic 12 gauge No. 25077, $345, against the Mossberg Persuader Model 590A1 No. 51411 and the Winchester Defender Model 1300 Pistol Grip & Stock Combo No. 512907308. All three guns were matte-black synthetic-stock pumps with 3-inch chambers, with 18- to 18.5-inch barrels and weights around 7 pounds. One of our staffers wound up keeping the Model 870 Express Synthetic, but he wasnt happy with the furniture. The fixed 870 buttstock had an LOP of 14 inches, a drop at comb of 1.5 inches, and a drop at heel of 2.5 inches, with no noticeable cast. In the 2005 test, the Winchester came with a pistol grip, which gave it flexibility the others couldnt match. Also, the Winchester had a noticeably better buttpad than the others. Its ventilated design was much softer, and the edges were already rounded off. As well, the Mossberg and Winchester buttstocks included molded-in studs for rear sling swivels, and the Winchester also included a screw-in stud on its magazine cap. Overall, our team said the Winchesters stock was much better than the Remingtons, so that naturally became the area we wanted to try to improve.So we ordered five replacement buttstock kits from Brownells, along with some tools to make assembling the upgraded 870 parts easier. Because Brownells offers so many buttstocks, weve listed the companys order numbers to ensure you can find the right product if you choose to follow our advice and buy one. Our test units were the Blackhawk Knoxx SpecOps Folding Stock ($130; #100-003-180), the Blackhawk Knoxx SpecOps Adjustable Recoil-Reducing Stock ($135; #100-002-438), the Phoenix Technology KickLite Tactical Stock ($110; #100-005-357), the Brownells Remington 870 Tactical Conversion Kit ($180, #080-000-567); Choates Top-Fold Stock ($103, #159-000-014), and the Mesa Tactical Products Low-Tube Kit ($230, #100-003-297).Along with these stocks, we also ordered a Brownells Magna-Tip Ratchet Handle ($30, #080-000-513) and a Remington Forend Wrench ($51, #080-870-202). Not to veer too far off course, but its worth noting that our team came to depend on these two tools very heavily while moving the stocks on and off the test action. The ratcheting driver has an ergonomically designed T-shaped handgrip of high-impact plastic contoured to ensure maximum comfort and control. It provided extra leverage to quickly tighten or loosen the stock screws, and it accepts all Magna-Tip bits, which are magnetized. On a couple of the stocks, the magnetism was a godsend in aligning screws in dark, deep pockets and getting them started with a twist of the wrist.The Remington Forend Wrench made getting to and removing the action nut on the 870 simple, which was helpful on the three kits that had forend replacements. That became doubly important because we compared the forends to each other in administrative handling indoors, and decided to keep the original Remington forend on throughout our shooting tests. Making those "is-A-better-than-B?" forend changes without the forend wrench would have been arduous.