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Thread: Vetting a Defensive Pump Shotgun?

  1. #11
    Murder Machine, Harmless Fuzzball TCinVA's Avatar
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    You are looking to ensure it functions reliably with properly manufactured ammunition. You can achieve most of that with good dummy shells like the Fiocchi dummies.

    Ensure you can load the magazine to capacity without abnormally high levels of effort. This ensures the spring is in spec, the follower is moving freely, etc.

    Ensure that you can run the action vigorously without more than one shell being released from the magazine at a time.

    In live fire, you want to ensure that empty shells extract properly and that the next shell feeds without hanging up.

    Ensure your sighting system is properly adjusted for the ammunition you will be using in the gun.

    That's pretty much it.
    3/15/2016

  2. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by revchuck38 View Post
    I've started the process, shown here.

    The ammo I'm going to use for vetting is stuff I've had for a while that I want to get rid of - 75 rounds of Federal birdshot, 30 rounds of Estate low-recoil 00, 40 rounds of Winchester Ranger low-recoil 00, and a few boxes of Federal Truball full-power slugs which I have no idea why I bought. I plan to zero the gun at 50 yards with low-recoil Truball (actually, this will be step 1) and then pattern eight- and nine-pellet Federal Flite Control 00 to see which it prefers. It will end up loaded (full magazine and sidesaddle, empty chamber) with its preferred buckshot. It's going to be an inside-the-house gun so I see no need for slugs, especially with the FC ammo. I'll keep some slugs on hand anyway, because reasons.

    I had already signed up for a shotgun class next month with Steve Moses, so I've got that covered. Shotgun training is harder to find than carbine training, at least around here.

    Thanks for the feedback!
    For a home defense gun I would zero at 25 rather than 50.

  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by HCM View Post
    For a home defense gun I would zero at 25 rather than 50.
    With the 870, FFC nine-pellet was about 3" low at 25 when the slugs were zeroed. My thinking is that zeroing the slugs at 50 would bring the POI of the FFC up closer to POA at 25 while not negating the ability to use slugs if needed. I still need to check the POI of the eight-pellet load at 25 before I get too crazy on this, since my experience with my 590A1 and also what I've read here and other places is that the nine-pellet version often tosses a pellet away from the others.
    Last edited by revchuck38; 11-17-2019 at 02:14 PM.

  4. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by revchuck38 View Post
    With the 870, FFC nine-pellet was about 3" low at 25 when the slugs were zeroed. My thinking is that zeroing the slugs at 50 would bring the POI of the FFC up closer to POA at 25 while not negating the ability to use slugs if needed. I still need to check the POI of the eight-pellet load at 25 before I get too crazy on this, since my experience with my 590A1 and also what I've read here and other places is that the nine-pellet version often tosses a pellet away from the others.
    If FFC 00 is your primary load then zero / pattern off that. Shotgun barrels tend to be unique.

  5. #15
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    I put about 70 rounds through it today. I moved the rear sight up a notch which moved the POI up to where it should be. At 25 yards it keeps most of the pellets within the 8 ring of a B6 repair center with one or two leakers maybe an inch or two out, so well within the -1 of an IDPA target. Eight- and nine-pellet loads shot about the same.

    FFC buck, Federal slugs and Winchester Ranger low-recoil 00 ran flawlessly; Estate low-recoil 00, not so much. Twice with the Estate load the gun temporarily locked up at the beginning of the stroke when extracting; pushing the forend forward freed it. Once I had a failure to fully eject, like the outside extractor didn't want to let go of the rim. I wiped it off like you do with a pistol and it came off easily, so it might've been me not working the action forcefully enough. That was all the Estate ammo I had and I'm not getting any more.

    The Mesa Tactical sidesaddle really hangs onto the shells, as in you have to serious tug on those puppies to get them out. I did three iterations of shoot two/load two until I ran empty and it wasn't speedy. Need to get some dummy rounds and practice that.

    Rounds fed reliably regardless of how many were in the magazine. I could only fit six rounds in the nominally 5+2 tube, but don't see that as a big issue.

    Looks like it's good to go as long as I use decent ammo.

  6. #16
    Murder Machine, Harmless Fuzzball TCinVA's Avatar
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    The Mesa holds the shells really tight until the rubber tube that they use to retain the shells gets broken in.

    Once it is broken in, it's just right...for about a week.

    Then it loses the ability to retain the shells.

    That's one of the reasons why I tell people to avoid it and buy the Vang Comp shell cards instead.
    3/15/2016

  7. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by revchuck38 View Post
    I could only fit six rounds in the nominally 5+2 tube, but don't see that as a big issue.
    18" 870 Magnum? That's a 4+2; six is correct.

  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Joe Mac View Post
    18" 870 Magnum? That's a 4+2; six is correct.
    Thanks! I guess the five round thing includes one in the chamber.

  9. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by HCM View Post
    For a home defense gun I would zero at 25 rather than 50.
    25 yards zero? For a home defense shotgun?

    SMH..............

    There isn't any single place in my house where the farthest distance is over 15 yards, and the longest one is the non-walkout basement. Any place where someone could gain access into from the outside is less than 10 yards across, most of them much less.

    "Vetting" a home defense shotgun with dozens and dozens of different loads? LOL, these fantasies.
    Last edited by Alpha Sierra; 11-24-2019 at 09:31 PM.

  10. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alpha Sierra View Post
    25 yards zero? For a home defense shotgun?

    SMH..............

    There isn't any single place in my house where the farthest distance is over 15 yards, and the longest one is the non-walkout basement. Any place where someone could gain access into from the outside is less than 10 yards across, most of them much less.

    "Vetting" a home defense shotgun with dozens and dozens of different loads? LOL, these fantasies.
    It's unlikely that using a closer distance to zero would change POI at in-the-house distances. That said, zeroing at the farther distance permits a more precise zero. And I fail to see how burning through the odds and ends of ammo I have to make sure the gun works is a fantasy.

    Damn, you must be off your meds.

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