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New woman's shotgun


TyinTX

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Took my wife along to the Johnson 3 gun match this past weekend and now I am no longer getting a new shotgun for myself, she wants one. The budget is going to allow either a pretty much stock Beretta 1301 or Stoeger M3000 worked over into the P3K when the design is finalized.

These 2 guns are picked because they are:

1. The 2 I was already looking at for myself.

2. Reliable and budget friendly.

3. Not heavy guns.

This leads me to a few questions.

While not terribly recoil sensitive, is the 1301 gas system going to be noticeably softer shooting than the inertia M3K when both are properly fitted and have good recoil pads?

I have already read Patrick Kelley's article on shotgun fit and have applied it to my current shotgun. She has handled both guns in stock form but not shot them. Currently holding a 1301 she has to turn her head almost sideways and scrunch down to even sort of get on the sights. The stock needs to drop a good bit and some cast off be applied to even get her close. The long LOP of the stock M3K make other adjustments irrelevant to start. Between the 1301 and the M3K, which has more adjustment for drop and cast or will they both be about the same?

My plan is to get either shotgun and the shim kit and attempt to properly fit it before she ever fires the gun. LOP will be cut to 12.5 inches with recoil pad installed. This will hopefully allow me to correct pitch with shims as well cast and drop while still maintaining a shorter LOP. I'm just guessing that proper LOP will come out to between 12.5 and 13 inches based of stock adjustments made to shotguns when I was growing up. My shotgun now has a 13 1/4 length of pull which is far to long for her. Any advice on this plan would be greatly appreciated.

Edited by TyinTX
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Anything said by an expert like Patrick completely trumps what I'm about to say, OK?

One memorable time I was squadded with at least two women in a match. One was Candice Horner.....yes wife of the famous Daniel. She did great outside of an odd equipment failure.

The other was a new-to-3-gun shooter. She was a fit young lady (did lots of CrossFit from what she said) that had experience with pistol competitions but was new to 3gun and shotguns in particular. She was borrowing a Benelli M2, as I recall. It was definitely an inertia system gun. But, it just wasn't her cup of tea. On one stage someone loaned her a VersaMax with a 22" barrel. That was like night and day to her. Same ammo in each gun. Her reported perceptions were so strong that I doubt the modest difference in weight between guns would account for all of her reaction.

She was hell bent on getting a VersaMax before the next match. She was sold right then and there.

Given that tiny sample size of one person, I would hope you can get the 1301 to fit your wife. However, it sounds like it is a very awkward fit for her, right out of the box. That's a problem.

I wish you both the best of luck.

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Unfortunately she will not be at the May match but I will be and I would love to look at the 1301 and shoot it if I can. She won't be able to be back up there until the July match. I know planning to cut the stock on the 1301 is probably premature, need to adjust drop and cast then look again a LOP. With the gun set up with no shims at all the gun fits me almost perfectly but for her is virtually unshootable. Does the 1301 come with the shim kit or do you need to buy it?

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After teaching 50 women a shotgun class over the weekend, it just reinforces my perception that the M3000 is a better choice than the 1301, especially for smaller shooters. The M3000 is softer than the M2 and is not as sharp as the 1301.

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While I have never shot the m3000, I would be looking at the 1301, my wife is very recoil sentive and we have found the 1301 to be very soft. Not as soft as a versamax, but is doesn't come close to the weight....The gun is race ready out of the box, all that is needed is a tube. Also the stock length is very short without the spacers installed.

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Mark, do you know if anyone has done quantitative evaluations of tube fed shotgun recoil? I remember seeing a video of comparing shotguns (+/-) mid-barrel compensators strapped to a sled using high speed video and both muzzle rise and distanced the apparatus traveled rearward to get a comparison for the percent recoil reduction for the compensated model.

The reason I ask is I was in a similar position with regard to the OP. Wife chose the M2 because it was lighter than the VM. I can't tell the difference between a VM and an M2 on the clock, but I can barely tell the difference between an 870 and a VM unless I shoot slugs. In the absence of having all choices available for a new to shoot simultaneously, it might be valuable to get rough estimates for the comparative amount of recoil between different tube fed guns.

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I do not, and I do not think it would be relevant. Especially with shotguns, fit is important and a proper stance and fit overcomes most issues. I can tell that the VM is a tad softer than the M3000, which is softer than the 1301 which is softer than the M2. However, across the board, I shoot the M2 faster on the clock. There are things I can do with the M2 that I would not risk with the VM as well.

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I do believe getting the fit right is going to matter more for recoil than gas vs inertia. She has shot my Nova, which doesn't fit her, and complains about the gun being front heavy and awkward. The 12 gauge recoil doesn't bother her much but she also hasn't shot a 17 round stage just some thrown clays. Either gun will recoil less than the Nova so getting fit right is my main concern.

Having never shot either gun, just researching them I was going to buy a M3000 for myself. With the wife wanting to start shooting it's made me reopen the issue. I greatly appreciate any information I can get, especially from those of you who have shot both.

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My experience with women and shotguns is they are usually too heavy and long for them, even if it feels good in your hands. I have a 1301 and find it to be light and low recoil but all the girls in the family found it to be a boat anchor. I recently bought a Stoeger 3020 a 20ga to get the kids started. They found it heavy too. I am planning to send it for the Stoeger therapy to MOA (if he will do it) at least as a temporizing measure. I have shot skeet with it and was impressed with it. A youth sized gun will go a long way in my opinion.

Edited by dogtired
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  • 3 weeks later...

A little update on this, I was able to see a 1301 in action and shoot a few rounds through it. The gun ran 100% all day on 2 3/4 dram AAs and the Estate shells I had. I hadn't shot a semiautomatic shotgun in years so I don't have a good baseline to compare recoil too. A couple of observations if I was going to get one though. Any shotgun I get will have either a Kick Eez or Limbsaver pad installed on it first thing. The difference between stock pads and the aftermarket ones is night and day. Second, loading twins or quads the loading port needs a bit of work on the front. I would cut the sides down a little while I was at it but the front edge catches shells before they start into the tube. 1301 seems like a good shotgun but not sold on it yet, I want to get a closer look at the M3000 first.

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Mark,

With a M3000 set up with one of your mag tubes is the gun reliable enough with 1 1/8 oz 2 3/4 dram loads or best to stay with the 3 dram? Reason I ask is just to find the absolute lowest possible recoil out of any gun/ammo combination but still avoid unnecessary malfunctions.

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