Notes from a range trip yesterday

[Chief Brody]

I took a friend for his first time at an outdoor range yesterday - Calverton Shooting Range in Eastern Long Island, NY. My 870P ran through about 100 rounds of Federal and birdshot, maybe 25 rounds of Rio and S&B 00B, and about 30 Winchester slugs. While my friend was shooting a few slugs, I noticed that the rear sight (I have Ameriglo night rifle sights on the factory bases) had slid forward with about 1/8" off the front the base. Well, all right I thought - First time that's ever happened, it worked itself loose. Luckily, there were some marks on the base so I could put it back exactly where it was before. I had tools with me and tightened it back up (Used Loctite once I was back home). With that taken care of, I was hitting in about a 6" circle at 50 yards, sitting. Works for me!

A couple of years ago, I found out the hard way - during a competition - that there were brands of shells that my gun absolutely did not like. The very common culprit, the cheap Winchesters and also Estate birdshot rounds, as well. Well, since then I've probably put another 1000 rounds through the gun so I grabbed what little i had left of those shells, curious to see if they would still cause problems. And they did not disappoint! And by that I mean, they disappointed. Just like old times. A few shots go boom and eject normally, but several would stop the gun cold and I'd have to really rail on the forend with the buttstock in my hip. While a manually-operated gun SHOULD eat anything you feed it, I'm now fairly content in saying that my thoroughly-broken in and super slick Police Magnum is a great shotgun... and those are just crappy, crappy shells. They expand too much in the chamber and they jam. Period.

We also messed around with my 10/22 Takedown, but compared to the 870P, it barely feels like shooting haha.. Still fun, though.
Overall, a very fun day at the range.

[Rtodacheene]

Im glad I read this. I also have a 870P. I have around 750 shells - only shot around 500- of 00B(Estate) and recently been buying Federal brand. I guess ill finish the Estate and get more Frederal.

[Chief Brody]

Federal, Remington, Fiocchi, and Rio - good to go. Never had any issues with any brands of buckshot or slugs. This Sunday I've got my next steel plate competition - Another 150 or so rounds of birdshot and lots of fun.

[nieuport17.1977]

I also have trouble Estate bird shells. Glad to know its not just me. I know Winchester will have issues based on what I read, so I never bothered with those.
I couldn't find anything on issues with Estate until now
I now only use Remington shells with zero issues.

[Synchronizor]

Same here, plenty of bad experiences with Winchester Universals and the cheap Estate promo target loads. It seems some companies just try to stretch things a bit too far in an attempt to keep prices competitive. The higher-end Winchester hunting & fighting shells have always worked fine for me, and I've loaded a lot of the premium brass-cup Winchester HS target hulls with good results I've also shot quite a bit of green-box Estate buckshot over the years. Not the greatest ever, but it works pretty well, and it's very nicely-priced for buffered buckshot with decent cup-style wads. The pellets are a tad under-sized in the 00B load, but that's actually pretty typical, and it helps reduce recoil.

The Estate 27-pellet #4B used to be my HD load of choice, but I'm running Rio 21-pellet #4B at the moment. Nearly as many holes, but significantly less recoil. The unfired shells are longer, which can affect capacity depending on the magazine configuration, and the patterns aren't great at longer ranges, but for reaching from the bed to the bedroom door, it does just fine. If I need to go longer, I have a scoped 7mm Mauser keeping the shotgun company.

The cheap, bulk-pack, steel-cup Federal target shells are pretty old-school - wound paper base-wad, triple-plus wad column, etc. - but they function pretty reliably for the money, and they're priced about the same as the crappy competition in my area. If you don't reload, and just want cheap factory shells for break-in, plinking, or practice, these are the ones to go for.

The steel-cup Remington gun club/sport loads/whatever-they're-calling-them-now also work well. While they're not quite as cheap as the Federals if you just want something that goes "bang", they're much stronger hulls, using the same unibody design - and the same extensive library of load data - as the cream-of-the-crop Remington STS target hulls. If you don't reload, someone else at the club will gladly take them.


Or, you can invest in a nice single-stage press and a few other pieces of kit, order some once-fired brass-cup Remington STSs or Federal GMMs, and load up some premium shells with quality components that cycle slick as owl snot, and are custom-tailored to be exactly what you want, all for less per round than even the crappiest promo loads.