Why You Need to Have The All-Around 12 Gauge

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I grew up on .410 Bore shotguns and still use them a lot for wingshooting in the uplands. This especially holds true for my L.C. Smith double. The 28 gauge? I am equally fond of that little rascal, and my AYA No. 1 Grade side-by-side chambered for it will be one of the very last guns to go. Then we have the grand old 20 gauge. I still have one of the first Model 101 over-unders built by Winchester, and thousands of rounds later it is still going strong. No shotgun brings back as many wonderful memories as my father’s 16-gauge L.C. Smith, and I love being in the field with it.

But despite my fondness for those four shotshells and their guns, I will have to admit that for someone who chooses to do it all with just one shotgun, the 12 gauge is the logical choice. Name a game, and the 12 gauge is willing and able to play it quite well. It can duplicate the performance of the lightest 28-gauge target load and equal the heaviest field load presently available in the 10 gauge and everything else in between. The only thing the 12 gauge cannot do is squeeze into guns that have the handling, the feel, and the liveliness of those in the smaller gauges. But in the right gun, it comes close enough to make many wingshooters happy.

During the transition from muzzleloader to breechloader during the mid-1860s, those who built breechloaders commonly included with them cases first made of steel and then later of brass. The owner of a new gun relied on the dealer who sold it for instructions on the insertion of primers, blackpowder, wads, and shot, as well as the equipment needed for doing so. Efforts to make shotshell hulls of paper ended in failure until 1884, when Winchester perfected the wax-impregnation method for hulls in 2-inch and 25/8-inch lengths at a cost of $11 per thousand. Factory-loaded shotshells did not become available until years later.

The Mighty 12 Gauge

In America the standard length of the 12-gauge shell eventually became 2¾ inches, with shot charges ranging from 1 ounce to 1¼ ounces. The 3-inch shell loaded with 17/8 ounces of shot arrived in 1935, with writer and avid waterfowl hunter Nash Buckingham often praising a shotgun that went by the name of Bo Whoop in his many magazine articles. It was a nine-pound side-by-side double built by Burt Becker of the A.H. Fox Shotgun Co. of Philadelphia and cataloged by the company as the Super Fox. Buckingham had many fans, but quite a few hunting seasons would come and go before other waterfowlers began to accept the long shell and the Winchester Model 12 Heavy Duck gun in which it was introduced. Production of that gun ended in 1963. Federal upped the ante in 1988 with the introduction of the 3½-inch shell loaded with 2¼ ounces of shot, and it first appeared in the Mossberg Model 835 Ulti-Mag pump gun.

Moving to the opposite extreme today, in addition to being soft on the shoulder and kind to vintage doubles, the B&P Upland Game Classic 2½-inch shell loaded with an ounce of Nos. 6, 7½, and 8 shot at a velocity of 1,160 fps is quite effective on birds ranging in size from quail to early-season pheasants. Going even shorter, the 1¾-inch shell is presently loaded by Federal with 5/8 ounce of No. 8 shot, No. 4 buckshot, and a rifled slug. Aguila also loads the stubby shell. I tried the Federal load with No. 8 shot in a 12-gauge double, and recoil proved to be .410 soft. The only repeating shotgun I am aware of that will reliably feed those stubby little critters is the slide-action Mossberg Model 590.

The first plastic shotshells arrived in 1960, and with them came things both good and bad. On the good side, during rainy-day hunts, they did not absorb moisture, swell up, and refuse to enter the chamber of a gun as sometimes happened with paper hulls. On the bad side, paper hulls hunters left in the field would eventually deteriorate, and while the metal head lingered longer, it would eventually disappear. Plastic hulls stop spoiling the scenery only when a thoughtful person picks them up, although in high-grass country they are not always easy to find. And while the one-piece plastic wad column improved ballistics, the water in front of duck blinds and other places across America became littered with them. Sentimental people like me will never forget the wonderful aroma wafting from a just-fired paper hull on a cold winter morning.

Upping the Ante

For shooting buckshot and slugs, the 12 gauge is superior to the smaller gauges. There was a time when a deer hunter who needed more reach from his shotgun than offered by buckshot had no choice but to shoot shells loaded by various manufacturers with a simple lead ball. Damage to the choke in a barrel was avoided by making ball diameter smaller than bore diameter, and accuracy much beyond 25 yards usually left a lot to be desired. Accuracy improved when a rifled slug designed by Karl Foster appeared in 12-gauge shells just prior to the beginning of World War II. While it was a big improvement over the ball, when fired in most guns, accuracy could be less than minute of whitetail much beyond 100 yards. The barrel of an Ithaca Model 37 Deerslayer I bought for hunting deer in a shotgun-only area of Kentucky was slightly undersized and without choke constriction and was built specifically for use with slug loads. With a Redfield 2.5X scope, its best three-shot accuracy at 100 yards was around five inches.

Then came fully rifled shotgun barrels and sabot-enclosed slugs, and while accuracy improved dramatically, effective range did not greatly improve until the ballistic coefficient of slugs was improved by adding a pointed nose profile. Examples were the Federal 325-grain Tipped Expander, the Remington 385-grain Bonded AccuTip, and the Hornady 300-grain FTX. Muzzle velocity ranged from 1,850 to 2,000 fps. Several guns I shot through the years were quite accurate with those loads, but a Browning A-Bolt still residing in my gun rack was a bit ahead of the others in accuracy by averaging less than two inches at 100 yards and about twice that at 200 yards. I first used the A-Bolt and the Federal load on a hunt for whitetails in Alberta, Canada, and while a rifle would have been a better choice for the open country there, I did not go home empty handed. When zeroed three inches high at 100 yards, the Federal slug was six inches low at 200 yards, where it delivered just over 1,300 foot-pounds of energy.

Wingshooting

As mentioned earlier, most of my wingshooting has been, and still is, with guns of smaller bores, but there have been a few in 12 gauge. The very first was a Browning Auto 5, not because I actually needed it, but because it had been gathering dust in a gunshop for many years, and the price could not be resisted. I eventually gave it to a friend who needed a good shotgun but was experiencing hard times and had no money to buy one. A gun I probably should have kept was a Winchester Model 59 with an aluminum receiver and a composite Win-Lite barrel “built by wrapping 500 miles of glass fiber around a thin steel tube,” as Winchester advertisements described it. Weighing a mere 5.5 pounds, it was one of the quickest-pointing guns I have ever taken to the grouse woods but not so good for passing shots at doves. Then came 1963, and it was love at first shot with the new Remington Model 1100. I still have that one as well as a later Model 11-87, which is as good although a few ounces heavier. Another 12-bore gun I plan to keep is a Benelli Vinci. After giving one a serious workout on doves in Argentina, I could hardly wait to get home and place my order. It has proved to be as good at sporting clays.

My first 12-gauge over-under was a Browning Superposed Lightning that weighed a bit less than eight pounds and sold for a bit less than $600. Years later, I hunted a great deal with a Browning Citori, and from a practical point of view, it was equal in every way. I still have a Remington Model 3200 Competition with 30-inch barrels choked IC and Full, and it broke a lot of clay targets when I was shooting registered targets in trap. I used it for 16-yard singles and doubles, but for singles at handicap distances, I switched to a Remington 90T with a single 34-inch barrel choked Full. Several years later I switched to registered skeet using a Krieghoff K32 with 28-inch barrels and a set of .410, 28-gauge, and 20-gauge full-length insert tubes made by Clarence Purbaugh. The 12-gauge over-under I have hunted with most is a Ruger Red Label with 28-inch barrels. While it’s a bit on the heavy side, I shoot the gun quite well, and it has been with me on many pheasant hunts.

I have hunted with only three side-by-side guns in 12 gauge. While in Spain about 26 years ago, I had the great pleasure of shooting driven red-legged partridge on a grand estate with a pair of doubles built by Aguirre y Aranzabal (AYA). Like the other shooters in our group, I enjoyed the company of an experienced loader. As the birds passed high overhead like bullets, I would take two shots and then hand that gun to my companion with one hand while he placed a loaded gun in the other. This was repeated until that flight of birds had ended. We then moved to other areas for more shooting. It was a wonderful experience, one I will never forget. Moving on to a Fox Sterlingworth purchased many hunting seasons ago, it was built in 1924, and its 30-inch barrels are choked Modified and Full. That gun is seen at its best for pass-shooting waterfowl with bismuth shot and long-distance shooting of late-season pheasants. Unlike many guns of its vintage, drop in its stock is not excessive, and it fits me quite well, so I shoot it quite well.

Classic Pump-Action

There have been three important 12-gauge pump guns in my life. I have always enjoyed hunting with vintage guns, and a John Browning-designed Winchester Model 1897 with a 30-inch barrel choked Full has served that role quite well. It is the takedown version. As the model designation indicates, it was introduced in 1897, and by its serial number mine was probably built during the early 1920s. The gun has an external hammer and a very nice trigger pull for its age. Several variations, including a Riot Gun with a 20-inch Cylinder-bore barrel, were available.

During World War I, the U.S. Army purchased just over 19,000 of those, and with military markings it was referred to by Winchester (and many doughboys who used it over there) as a trench gun. They liked it because holding back the trigger while pumping the gun sent a deadly stream of 00 buckshot. When paper-cased shells proved unsuitable for use in the constantly wet and muddy trenches, they were replaced by brass-cased shells. It accepted the same bayonet as the 1917 Enfield rifle, and a ventilated handguard on the barrel of the shotgun protected the hand of the shooter during rapid firing. My 1897 has proved to be deadly on pheasants during late winter when the birds are often taken at considerable distances. Back when I was into registered trap shooting, I would occasionally show up at practice with the 1897, and at handicap distances, it could hold its own with some of the modern guns built specifically for the game.

Another pump gun in my battery is a Remington 870 with two 26-inch barrels, one fully rifled, the other smoothbore with a variety of screw-in chokes. It wears an early version of the Aimpoint red-dot sight. Years ago, I put that gun together for hunting deer, turkeys, and called-in coyotes. But the pump gun I have used most for turkey hunting is a Stoeger P3000. I first used it and a new Federal turkey load to take a Merriam’s gobbler on the Tejon Ranch in California and liked the combination so well I stayed with it on other hunts.

While I have not used 12-gauge guns for hunting as much as shotguns with smaller bores, I have used them enough to become convinced that the 12 does an excellent job of covering everything one would want to do with a single shotgun. 

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