3Gun Shotgun suggestions...

[BenL]

Keep in mind, inertia driven guns (like the Benelli) will have a little more recoil than a gas gun (like the FN.) The FN is a really fast-shooting gun with light recoil, but you have to keep them clean.

 

[jimbobborg]

Keep in mind, inertia driven guns (like the Benelli) will have a little more recoil than a gas gun (like the FN.) The FN is a really fast-shooting gun with light recoil, but you have to keep them clean.

I took this from The Firing Line. "It is a fact beyond dispute that the fastest cycling shotguns are the Winchester SX2 (FN SLP) and SX3. The official record is 12 shots in 1.442 seconds with a SX3."

More:

"The dead trigger is due to dropping the hammer before the gun is in battery."
From "Speed Shotgun" by Patrick Kelley published in Front Sight magazine, official journal of the United States Practical Shooting Association. Somewhat dated from 2001, but nothing has really changed.

"Using the same videographic techniques that we applied to the 1100, we found the limit for the Benelli: 13 hundredths of a second. That's it. Any faster, and the hammer follows the bolt."

"The initial reaction of many shooters to this information is, "Who cares? Who really goes that fast?" or "Where would I use that speed?" Practical shooters (and some tactical shooters) are different. This is why I penned my "on the range" experiences. If you KNEW that your pistol stopped working at .13 seconds and your ability exceeded that, you would be at the gunsmith getting it fixed. Why should you expect less from your shotgun? If you worked on a SWAT team, and the Benelli was your main shotgun, wouldn't knowing that you were carrying a gun guaranteed to fail at under .13 second splits give you pause?"

"Okay, drum roll please. Will the real world's fastest cycling shotgun please stand up? What? We have two guns standing? How can this be? We can thank the people at Winchester and Browning for this situation. They have unwittingly given us a choice between two "world's fastest cycling shotguns." The Browning Gold and the Winchester Super X2 are both built on the same basic platform, and these guns haul!"

" I got a chance to spend a little time (very little) with the Winchester Super X2 and found what may pull me away from my beloved Auto 5. After a few speed drills on three pepper poppers, I was already well pleased with this self-loader's performance. Using 00 Buck loads (does this thing smooth out recoil or what?) I ran a three-popper course with each popper a yard apart and 12 yards down range. From the port arms position I was able to "draw" and knock down all three in just under one second. Considering a reaction and first engagement time of .68, split times between the next two poppers were 12 and 13 hundredths respectively. This is as fast as my Auto 5! At this speed, the Benelli's hammer follows the bolt!
Idaho state police officer David Neth was kind enough to let me perform this test with his personal Winchester SX2 Practical. He also demonstrated this shotgun's true capability by pulling off some 11 hundredths splits along with a handful of 12's. To top that, he beat my personal record for the fastest five shots. This is a little thing I have been doing since the speed bug hit me. With the timer running you let loose of five rounds as fast as you can, counting the first shot as zero and totaling the remaining four split intervals. My best to date has been 56 hundredths. David amazed the small gathering at a 3 gun match in Winchester, Idaho by firing those five shots in 51 hundredths! The splits were three .13's and one .12. This gun is full auto fast! By the way, this was with Federal 00 buck. No, not the low recoil stuff, this was Federal MAX 2 3/4 Classic."

 

[Armati]

I wouldn't argue with an FN either. They are great guns if you want to go the gas route.

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[Nimrod]

I bought a FN SLP for 3-gun. It is a great shotgun. But the comb is too high for me and the SLP doesn't ship with any shims to change the drop of the stock. My sore cheek and jaw convinced me to look for an alternative. I looked at the JP 930 as a replacement, but I ended up taking my Benelli SBE that I use for bird hunting and installing a 24" barrel and Nordic Components magazine tube. Good to go. Any chance you already have a good bird gun, such as a Remington 1100-1187 or Benelli? If so, you may already have great shotgun for 3-gun competition.

 

[jimbobborg]

I bought a FN SLP for 3-gun. It is a great shotgun. But the comb is too high for me and the SLP doesn't ship with any shims to change the drop of the stock. My sore cheek and jaw convinced me to look for an alternative. I looked at the JP 930 as a replacement, but I ended up taking my Benelli SBE that I use for bird hunting and installing a 24" barrel and Nordic Components magazine tube. Good to go. Any chance you already have a good bird gun, such as a Remington 1100-1187 or Benelli? If so, you may already have great shotgun for 3-gun competition.

Are you in 922r compliance?

 

[Nimrod]

The SBE scores 12. Tube and follower are enough. I probably should have added that warning in my post... Thanks for bringing that up.

 

[RobSky]

I run a JMP Pro with ext mag (total 13 rnds), ext bolt release, modified lifter and mag well.
Runs great for two years now.
Only issue, slugs shoot extremely high, no way to compensate other than holdover.

 

[davsco]

At least one of the problems with the Benelli was mixing brands of 12ga ammo in the same tube. Shooting all the same brand solved it.

.

thinking it wasn't mixing brands that caused any problems (the gun doesn't know what came before the current round, or after it), but maybe some of the brands just didn't work. everything from walmart (fed, win) works in my sbe2, but the softer skeet-oriented loads (rio) definitely are too light to cycle it.

most matches it runs 100% easily. last match the bolt didn't go forward once during the match.

 

[ITAdam]

thinking it wasn't mixing brands that caused any problems (the gun doesn't know what came before the current round, or after it), but maybe some of the brands just didn't work. everything from walmart (fed, win) works in my sbe2, but the softer skeet-oriented loads (rio) definitely are too light to cycle it.

most matches it runs 100% easily. last match the bolt didn't go forward once during the match.

It cycled the different shells fine when the tube was full of the same brand, either brand. It was strange.

 

[jasonk1229]

vepr 12

 

[photoracer]

I bought a FN SLP for 3-gun. It is a great shotgun. But the comb is too high for me and the SLP doesn't ship with any shims to change the drop of the stock. My sore cheek and jaw convinced me to look for an alternative. I looked at the JP 930 as a replacement, but I ended up taking my Benelli SBE that I use for bird hunting and installing a 24" barrel and Nordic Components magazine tube. Good to go. Any chance you already have a good bird gun, such as a Remington 1100-1187 or Benelli? If so, you may already have great shotgun for 3-gun competition.

Yeah but the cost. When I decided to start shooting 3-gun I already had 2 Browning Golds in my safe, a 3.5" black Stalker and my late wife's 20 ga Gold Hunter. I found out that the barrel I needed to convert the Stalker for 3-gun cost as much as buying a brand new Mossberg 930 JMP. So I promptly sold both Brownings and got enough to buy a 930 tactical and a 930 JMP and buy all the caddies and Load2/4 stuff I needed.
The only issue I had with the 930 is it did not like WWB ammo. Once I switched to Fed value packs from WM everything was fine. I also did not clean my 930 for the entire 1st season to see what it would do. Worked fine and I finally got guilty and cleaned it. Had to soak the gas ring for close to an hour to get it off the tube but it still worked. Have yet to do any mods on it. Does not need welding the carrier unless you load from caddies as doing load2/4 only needs cutting away some of the receiver around the mag opening to make loading better. Also some say you need to trim the right edge of the carrier because some guns will jam it against the side of the receiver protrusion there.
The only thing I miss from the Browning is the autoload 1st round feature. But if you tactical reload before you shoot the last round that does not matter.
Mine is a 24" 10 (9+1) round model which I have converted to 12+1 with a mag tube and extension from the Xrail guy (in case I run Open or the event allows loading more after the buzzer goes off). If they only allow 9 in the tube I remove the 2 round extension and leave the longer spring in which reduces the mag to 9.

 

[Armati]

I think you will find the FN SLP to be a lot less ammo sensitive.

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[Markp]

I think that I would use my Saiga-12 if it were legal to run. Seems like an easy shotgun to pick for 3 gun.

 

[BenL]

vepr 12

That would be an Open gun; out of the box, there are better match choices for an open gun (MK1919 Match Pro functions 100% with cheapo #8's right out of the box.)

 

[BenL]

I think that I would use my Saiga-12 if it were legal to run. Seems like an easy shotgun to pick for 3 gun.

You could run it for Open division.

 

[Nimrod]

Yeah but the cost. When I decided to start shooting 3-gun I already had 2 Browning Golds in my safe, a 3.5" black Stalker and my late wife's 20 ga Gold Hunter. I found out that the barrel I needed to convert the Stalker for 3-gun cost as much as buying a brand new Mossberg 930 JMP. So I promptly sold both Brownings and got enough to buy a 930 tactical and a 930 JMP and buy all the caddies and Load2/4 stuff I needed.
The only issue I had with the 930 is it did not like WWB ammo. Once I switched to Fed value packs from WM everything was fine. I also did not clean my 930 for the entire 1st season to see what it would do. Worked fine and I finally got guilty and cleaned it. Had to soak the gas ring for close to an hour to get it off the tube but it still worked. Have yet to do any mods on it. Does not need welding the carrier unless you load from caddies as doing load2/4 only needs cutting away some of the receiver around the mag opening to make loading better. Also some say you need to trim the right edge of the carrier because some guns will jam it against the side of the receiver protrusion there.
The only thing I miss from the Browning is the autoload 1st round feature. But if you tactical reload before you shoot the last round that does not matter.
Mine is a 24" 10 (9+1) round model which I have converted to 12+1 with a mag tube and extension from the Xrail guy (in case I run Open or the event allows loading more after the buzzer goes off). If they only allow 9 in the tube I remove the 2 round extension and leave the longer spring in which reduces the mag to 9.

You are correct there! The cost can definitely be a factor. I know a Remington 1100 or 1187 barrel can be had for about $350. The 24" Benelli SBE barrel I bought for $550, which was still worth it. I can only imagine what the Browning barrels cost...

 

[photoracer]

I run a JMP Pro with ext mag (total 13 rnds), ext bolt release, modified lifter and mag well.
Runs great for two years now.
Only issue, slugs shoot extremely high, no way to compensate other than holdover.

Have you tried both full power and low recoil slugs? I find that the low recoil slugs shoot well below where full power ones shoot on my 930 JMP (1600 FPS velocity vs. 1300 FPS velocity).

 

[jimbobborg]

Only issue, slugs shoot extremely high, no way to compensate other than holdover.

I don't have this problem with the FN. It was dead on out of the box.

 

[photoracer]

Saw an articles from a few years ago from former world multi-gun champ Bennie Cooley who primarily used a Browning Gold to win most or all of his titles and it was about split speed. He was saying the fastest guns could get down to .11s but that was about it even using the Browning Gold (same as FN SLP and Win sx-2/3). However I know that the Win SX did not have the Browning/FN auto-loading first round. So I found out that most of the Winchester shooters had Browning actions installed in their shotguns to get that feature. Other guns like the Benelli and the Mossberg don't have that either as if you run them dry you have to load the first round in the chamber before the lifer will clear the mag tube. One reason you will see most of those shooters with a 1-2 round soft caddy right in front of the ejection port so they can get a round in if they go dry. Many times you are moving when reloading and during that it is not much of a handicap I don't think. As a result most shooters dump some more rounds in the shotgun if they even have to move only a few steps.

 

[5.56blaster]

I second the Mossberg JM recommendation. I have the tactical version and like it.

I have one and it's a good gun'