Ben,  Think you hit a veritable homer there!  WELL DONE!  Tim

Zebulon said
Getting old is a bitch. I don’t advise it, based on my personal experience, except it provides the hopeful possibility of buying a nice Winchester from the ignorant executor of a less robust but meticulous owner who has assumed room temperature. 

Gas guns can help. 20 gauge gas guns can help even more and 28 gauge gas guns are balm for arthritic necks and shoulders. 

  

Ammo prices combined with aging bones & joints have encouraged me to limit my clay pursuits to two rounds per outing using light 1200fps loads. Most serious shooters my age have had shoulders repaired or replaced. I’m still on OE and have no desire to damage my shoulder trying to be the shooter I’m not. I do have a gas gun (SX3) that I’m trying to learn to shoot. It’s not near as pretty as a nice Model 12 but it makes time spent on a five stand or trap field more pleasant.

Mike

Hi Tim.  I’ve got the Browning branded Model 12 in 20 gauge and Model 42 in .410. For my money, Miroku makes really slick reproductions, particularly these two because they are in the deluxe style.  And they seem to appreciate as well, although perhaps at a slower rate than the originals.  

Neither is a 28 but I’ve shot a few rounds of Skeet with a 28 gauge 101, using Winchester’s one ounce load and really liked it, as did my shoulder.  It wasn’t anything like a. 410.  I intend to try it on doves next year. 

Tim, I’ll take your advice and try the 3/4 oz load and I do recall you throw a long shadow. 

I’ve had my Browning Model 12 for several years now. Someone had consigned it in like-new condition to a local shop, not long before I walked in the door and snapped it up. At the the time my dove gun was a very clean, mid-Fifties field grade Winchester Model 12 sixteen gauge with a 26″ IC barrel. The price for the sixteen had been unusually reasonable because it had a short LOP, not cut down but factory original with factory buttplate. I added a slip-on pad and hunted with it. However, after using the Browning 12 for a season I sold the Winchester and kept the Browning. 

For some reason, my old Auto-5 Light 12 seems quite a bit heavier these days than it used to. And when I went out to Amarillo to hunt teal in the playa lakes with it,  the high velocity steel loads were just vicious. (The gun is a Belgian 1955 with plain, full choke barrel, but I added a Miroku Invector Plus barrel that can handle steel.)

My idea of a 12 gauge game load is more like the Brits use: an ounce of hard shot at moderate velocity. What makes the 28 gauge shoot hard is nobody loads it with soft shot, which is one reason it’s expensive.  If Remchester put that much antimony in their big box discount 12 and 20 gauge shells, they’d be double the price.

tim tomlinson said
Mike, since our doubles trap league ended, we are shooting subgauge trap.  Tuesday I shot my reproduction model 12 in 28 ga.  Modified choke at 16 yards was plenty tight when I did my part.  Fun and you should try some subgauge, especially if you can find a model 12 in small gauge.  Refined, good handling, and FUN!  Tim

  

Food for thought, Tim. I have a very nice field grade Model 12 20ga with a 26” modified barrel. I don’t believe I’ll be shooting many doubles with it, but I may give it a try. Not much selection in 20 ga ammo around here, I suppose my skeet ammo would suffice. I hate to shoot a 95-98% gun so will have to think this over some more. Maybe I can find a shooter at the TGCA Show next month.

Mike

I’m no Skeet competitor but the late great Bob Brister, author of Shotgunning: the Art and the Science and himself a champion competitor in several of the shotgun sports, listed some average scores for the several gauges used in Skeet competitions nationally. There were only a couple of points of difference between the 12 and 20 gauge numbers.  As Brister pointed out, Skeet target distances are not the whole story. However, I have found I get as many upland birds (not a lot) with a light 20 gauge as I do with a twelve.  This may be due to not being talented enough to hit much at more than 30 yards or so, but, as I have aged, I find my little battery contains more of the smaller gauges and fewer twelves.  

In fact, of the 3 remaining twelve gauge guns (excluding a cheap, egregious but fierce Stevens riot gun at bedside),  I’m strongly considering sending the barrel or barrels of either a Double Auto Twelvette or a BSS Sporter to Briley for choke tubes and a red Limbsaver pad. Probably the double because its plastic buttplate is undistinguished, whereas the DA is very late production, flat knobbed with a vent rib and a rather elegant even if molded plastic buttplate. Full choke, sadly.  A short recoil Val Browning invention, it’s a wand. 

I’ve wandered off topic but at least I’m among friends….

clarence said

 (The gun is a Belgian 1955 with plain, full choke barrel, but I added a Miroku Invector Plus barrel that can handle steel.)Zebulon said

If Miroku can make any part that will function in a gun made in another factory 50+ yrs earlier, it’s a demonstration of remarkable mfg precision.  Seldom are any repro parts interchangeable with originals.

  

If I thought I was going to be around 100 years from now I’d be buying all the Miroku rifles and and shotguns I could afford. They won’t have the romance of the Old West but there’s no telling what will make folks feel nostalgic in 2124.

Mike