New 20 gauge followed me home today----PICS ADDED

[Yak Angler]

After reading just about every 20 gauge thread since about 2004/5 over the last few weeks i decided i needed to have one. I have never owned/shot anything smaller than 12 gauge until today and was trying to put togeather a nice all around woods/kayaking/no specific purpose shotgun that i could hunt anything with and not weigh myself down like my 870 supermag and 3.5" ammo( also add's alot of weight ). I hike/paddle into most of my waterfowl spots and i was getting sick of carrying/paddling in so much weight in gear. From everything i have read in the past several weeks the general concensious was 20 gauge = powerful enough,light weight in H&R models, short OAL for the woods and low recoil compared to the average 12 gauge loading.

I swaped the factory pallet wood stock as i cleaned off the packaging grease and burnished the barrel this afternoon with a youth sythetic set I had lying around as i prefer shorter length's of pull for hunting due to my waterfowling gear being so thick it probably adds 2" of thickness to my chest and without a shorter stock i feel like im reaching too far forward to shoulder the gun properly. The barrel is 26" fixed full choke and i plan to feed it # 4 steel or # 6 hevi-shot while duck hunting and # 5 & 6 hard lead for everything else besides the usuall suspects for trap and skeet shooting.

I fired the gun 4 times while hunting this afternoon, unfortunatly not one of those shots was at a duck. I did however take out a water rat at 30 yards. bang-flop with #5 lead and shot the # 4 7/8 ounce steel loads into some snow banks and the pattern looked great at 35 yards. I am not sure what this gun weighs but i would guess somewhere in the 5 pound range would be close and recoil is non-existant in my hunting drab,  although 3.5 inch 12 gauge and 10 gauge loads don't feel any worse either while in my hunting gear.

Looking forward to a new years day hunting trip where hopefully the ducks co-operate and i can see the 20 gauge's potential on a few greenheads. Our waterfowl season ends in 1 week up here and I hope to add a few mallard pics to go with the wood ducks i got last year using my since sold H&R 32" fixed full 12 gauge. My camera is MIA right now so i will post some pics of the gun soon.

[fredster22]

Best of luck with it, should serve you well. Have found myself going to the 20 for more & more
purposes and all have worked well.  Fred

[picb]

I'm trying to get one to follow me home.

[Yak Angler]

I plan to experiment at the pattern board during the spring and summer to determine which size/brand steel and tungsten loads agree with it the most and hopefully by next years hunting season it is dialed in with 3-4 different load combinations. The nice thing about single shot guns is expensive ammo isn't as bad on the wallet because you only get 1 good shot anything after that would be to finish off a cripple which doesn't happen often when using HD shot and the cheaper steel shot loads can be used for cripples anyway.

Anyone test any loads in their full choked 20 gauge lately? I measured my choke size last night and it is measuring exactly full choke at .585" don't have a bore gauge though so i can only hope its on the money for a 20 gauge aswell.

[Rustyinfla]

   If you stop and think about it the old mountain men who were trapping for a living depended on their trade guns for their very existence. That trade gun was a 20 ga smooth bore  flintlock. What we have today also a great deal more efficient.

[FLNT4EVR]

What a lucky guy you are to have one come home with you The 20 ga handy is a real do it all shotgun. Ducks over decoys, turkeys within 40yds, all varieties of small game , and even deer and black bear can be taken. You are going to wish you did this years ago. I may someday have to stop shooting a lot of my heavier guns, but my H&R 20ga.....never.

[Yak Angler]

Hi everyone

I have attached some pics of the new aquisition. It measured out at 38 3/4" OAL and i would guess with the youth stocks somewhere between 5 and 5-1/2 pounds. I hope to have similar sucess to the one pic of me holding ducks from a hunt earlier this year as tomorrow morning this 20 gauge should take a few down hopefully. Just incase anyone wants to know there are 15 ducks on that lanyard, 3 ducks shy of our limit for the 3 of us who hunted that day can't remeber what it weighed but it was a hard hike back 1 mile or so with that thing on our necks we had to trade it off several times i would guess somewhere between 50-60pounds all fat late season mallards.

What a difference a few days make. 2 days ago i froze after 3-4 hours out on the river as it was -10 degrees and everything was icing up. Tomorrow is supposed to be + 7 and raining. Hope the river doesn't flood out, it was almost frozen over completely 4-5 inchs thick yesterday otherwise we might not be able to safely set up decoys and retreive birds and will call off the hunt if the water levels and current turn out to be to high.

[Yak Angler]

pic added

[bikerbeans]

Adam,

Looks like you are having a lot of fun in the Great White North!   Congrats on the new scattergun and good luck adding a couple of quackers to the freezer.

BB

[Yak Angler]

Hi BB,

Long time no chat

Definitely having fun up here I don't think there is anywhere on earth with better outdoor sports IMHO but following todays 4 hour long pooring rain, windy, soaking wet, freeze fest Texas all of a sudden has a nice ring to it  I think i could easily trade ducks for hogs and warm weather 

On the flip side we did manage to coax one drake into range after having to change locations due to a large ice sheet floating our way. Didn't take any photo's of it though the rain had soaked us to the bone and we decided my brother should get the duck since he went out onto the ice sheet to retrieve it.