Hi all, thanks for all the input. I did pick it up. I got a Bantam one and I LOVE IT!!! I would marry it but I don't think that's allowed. I am going to try shooting skeet soon and eventually I think I will try grouse hunting. Can't wait for tomorrow to go shooting. Now I have to decide what my next rifle will be. I am leaning towards the Remington 700 SPS Varmint. And I would really like a handgun so I think I will have to take my restricted soon.... I think I am a gun nut. lol.
Hi, I was a newbie the year before last, I've read alot, and gone out every single weekend, even in the rain, and the cold, and stifling muggy heat, and having to drench myself in the bug dope, and spent alot of weekday nights at my reloading presses. I record my results in notebooks, own AND use a chronograph, and don't make excuses for my failures, I look for real solutions. I'd like to make some suggestions too if you'd like to hear them.
I hope you're a wealthy person, shooting skeet with a 20 gauge. I would have suggested 12 gauge. Ammo is a hell of a alot cheaper in 12 gauge, even though it's larger, also the shot column starts off wider, and I'm told can be easier to get to even out, when working out loads, though I've only developed 10 gauge(a little) and 12 gauge (mostly) loads, so I'll have to take that as hearsay.
A loading press is as important as your first gun, and much more important than your second gun. I use lee, and felt better when I found out that another shooter and board member, and an accomplished benchrester, Mysticplayer, uses Lee equipement too, even though alot of people like to call it "crap" because it's more affordable than other brands.
Read your manual; load for your gun. If you thought a bantam weight 20 gauge is going to recoil less than a 12 gauge, you're correct in fact, and incorrect in practice.
Light guns hit you harder, and perceived recoil is harsher. If you find the gun is knocking your brains out, weight the stock with lead, lots of it. Suddenly your gun will feel softer when you shoot it.
Also, start reloading, you can vastly soften the effect on your shoulder, and lose very little downrange punch.
If you still have problems with recoil, you can have an aftermarket device installed like a cutts compensator. Yes, "muzzle brakes" can and are used on shotguns!
Also, before you start hitting clays, you need to start hitting target boards. If you shoot at a club, you should ask someone to help you pattern. It will either be a very large roll of beige paper, or a large plate of steel painted white before you shoot, and painted over with a roller of cheap housepaint after every time you shoot. I prefer the paper, but the sheet steel may let you make more tests, and you can take pictures with a digital camera. Just remember to write down which pics are associated with which loads, and SAVE them when you get home.
Reloading and patterning are vital because you want to be sure that you are the one missing the clays, not the gun patterning badly and having large gaps that the clay slips through. If you think it was your fault you'll try to "adjust" your shooting, and only get frustrated.
The other thing you might find out is that even very nice guns, $20,000 perazzi shotguns will shoot like crap with certain loads. Let me repeat that; your gun, no matter how nice will shoot like garbage with certain loads, certain powder/wad/shot combinations.
The lovely reverse side of that coin is that your gun,
no matter how cheap will shoot like a friggin' wet dream with a certain combination, and if you do good and consistent work at both the patterning board and the reloading press. You will end up selling your unwanted components on the EE, but that's OK, you will outshoot all the old dude's on the line within a fairly short time.
There's alot of old duffs who are going to see you on the line with patterning board and neatly labelled boxes of shell combinations shooting a little, scribbling away in your notebook, shooting...scribbling.....shooting....scribbling...etc..etc.. and are going to come along and say things like, "
listen kid, this is how it is, this is what you should use...yadda yadda", smile politely, nod, and do your thing.
Although there might be alot to say for experience, 95% of people never pattern their guns at all, and 99% of people will never really do the work in testing and load development. 20 years experience doing the same old, same old, isn't worth much at all. I've found out, by accident that the easiest way to separate the old duffers out, (they're nice, but not usefull), is to ask questions like, what reloading press do you use? What brand of chronograph are you using? and Do you find a powder trickler helpful? Do you cast/swage your own bullets/shot?
Usually you'll get blank looks from people who don't know what your talking about, but sometimes you'll be regaled with interesting advice like, "you don't need any of that, it's a shotgun!"
Of course, you know from your patterning board that some loads shoot clumps and gobs, and some shoot lovely even patterns, and that they both can come from the same gun, so that's a very silly thing to say.
These old "experts" are great to listen talk, but I'm out there every weekend often until dark, and large numbers of the club members, I only see on the line once and awhile for ten or fifteen minutes; ...........when they buy a new gun.
I'm not sure that buying nice new guns three or four times a year makes them crack shots, but I mailorder my targets from cibles by the thousand-lot, and I'd like to think that I'm pretty sharp.
All of the same applies to rifles and pistols too.
P.S. I use my sig line because I think it sounds cool, but the fact about basic rule of reloading for shotguns, is that there are few basic rules for reloading for shotgunning, other than those for safety, and you should test everything regularly.
It's even interesting that I've found some loads don't perform the same in nasty winter temperatures as they do in hot summer temperatures and vice versa. Powders and primers can burn faster when the ambient temperature is hot. I wouldn't have learned that if I wasn't the idiot out in inclement weather.
