The last hardware phase of 3-Gun was picking out a shotgun for myself. I had a ton of people offer suggestions, I did a lot of looking around to find something that I wanted. Competition shotguns have such wide variety of prices that I had a hard time starting to look. I needed to know what I should be looking for, and what really mattered in matches. The other key point would be investment cost, I did not want to spend a couple thousand dollars on something without being committed to the sport. Being cheap has it's benefits, but sometimes it can cost you money. Buy something that is junk, you spend money getting it ready to go, and when you finally get to the point you want something better, you end up unable to to get your investment back out of the gun. So that's a fairly diverse group of things to satisfy.
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| Beretta Supports Competition? Why not pistol as well? |
Early on, it was obvious that Benelli, specifically the M2, was one of the most popular shotguns being run in 3-Gun. The Inertia driven system is very reliable, and it's light. Being light it's fast and easy to point but the downside is that it has the most recoil. It also had about a $1300 cost new, and did require a fair amount of work to be done to it, so my investment would be in the $1700 to $1800 area, which is just more than I wanted to spend on a first shotgun. As a side note, the Benelli Super Vinci came with a stellar recommendation from Jay Carillo, but it also was in the same price range, and I just could not quite bring myself to make that level of a commitment.
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| This Italian Looks Pretty Nice |
The other early pitch was the Mossberg JM930 Pro, and it was at the complete other end of the spectrum. Priced at about $600 it was where I felt comfortable, it had multiple people recommending it to me, so you'd think it would have been a serious contender for my dollars. As I started researching it, I found all sorts of issues of with loading, extracting, and from a reliability point of view it appeared to be a hot mess. I went to a match recently, and one squad had three people shooting the JM930 (of 12 shooters) and only one managed to finish the match. For each person telling me it was worth the price, I had at least one person saying to stay as far away as possible. No middle ground on this one scared me away.
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| Only 1 Choke Tube is Included |
The Stoeger M3000 was a very serious contender at the end. At $500 it was the cheapest of all the shotguns I looked at, it had the Inertia driven system that I liked about the Benelli M2, but it needed some serious work. I'm not comfortable taking the Dremmel out and opening up the loading port. I could save about $200 in professional work if I felt comfortable doing that on my own, but for now, that's something I had to build into the cost. Total investment would have been around $650-$700 to get it into match shape, and I could have invested another $150 or so in parts to make it a little nicer. Jesse Tischauser, who is an excellent 3-Gun shooter ran a fairly stripped down one this past season to show he could be competitive with it at the highest level. I walked away impressed, but I had a hard time getting any kind of reviews from people who had shot one locally. The consensus was that people did not know it, and thought the $500 price point was a "buyer beware" mark. Ultimately I did not go this route, and I could have missed the boat, only time will tell.
The Beretta 1301 Competition was actually an early preference. I liked the way it pointed, it was infinitely lighter than the Remington Versamax (which was never one I considered, it was so heavy I could not imagine running around all day with it, even with that mitigating recoil.) and it was slightly heavier than the Benelli M2. The 24" model was natural to point, had a great cheek weld, and felt very good in my hands. The list price was $1199, and I was seeing them online about $1000. It came with the oversized charging handle, and other 3-Gun ready features. All it needs is a +5 magazine extension and in theory it's good to go. In reality, I'd still have the loading port opened up a bit, but that's not essential, not right now at least.
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| From the Factory, Loading Port is Opened Up a Little |
I'd kind of put the Beretta on the back burner, and was looking for a Stoeger, when I saw Cabela's of all places had it on sale, and I happened to have a coupon for it as well. After doing some serious driving from one to another, I found the 24" that I was looking for, and make the commitment. For me, I got the function, features, and reliability that I was looking for. I don't have to make any serious modifications, and can pretty much go, and when I am ready to do some work, then I've got a platform that will be worthy of it.
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| Stock Oversized Charging Handle |
So now all the hardware is taken care of, and as I have found it's not a cheap sport. I still have to get the accessories I need, shotgun shell caddies, AR mag holders, a new modular belt, a new holster, as well as a jogging baby carriage (big wheels, not the little one) and add gun holders and so on to it to carry my gear between stages. I'm glad this part is over, now I can get the remaining gear taken care of, get some practice in, and see how much I enjoy this in 2015.
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