Can shorter 12 gauge shotguns like the 20" Stoeger Coach gun be used to hunt turkey and deer? How does the shorter barrel effect the shot?

Thanks,

Patrick

Hello,
Supposedly horter barrels on a smoothbore shotgun usually make the shot disperse more; the shorter the barrel the quicker and wider it spreads out. BUT! I too have a 12 ga coach gun and by cracky it holds a nice, close patter even at a bit of a distance! So I would not hesitate to use it to hunt deer or what have you at a reasonable distance.
Freebooter

Every shotgun is a law unto itself. What you need to do is pattern the gun with the ammo you plan to use, and see how it does.

Short barrels are no problem, but a cylinder bore might not pattern as tight as you'll need. I've never hunted in NC, but Missouri turkey hunters usually want full choke or tighter.

Short barrels, no problem.

Open chokes - that may well be a big problem.

If the gun can be had with interchangeable choke tubes, then you might well find it useful. Longer barrels tend to swing smoother, but you'd probably be taking more deliberate aim with either deer or turkey, generally.

If you need to justify it to the better half - a short side by side is just the ticket for rabbits and quail :D and an open choke is fine for those critters, generally jumped at short range.

Cool, now all I have to do is figure out which shotgun I would like to have. As for my preferences, I like the blued shorties with exposed hammers. The safety factor with being able to uncock hammers sounds like a must. I would like to find one with interchangable chokes for the above mentioned reasons. The foreend seems to vary some between different brands, does the shape of the foreend affect performance at all?

Now that doesn't seem to help much as there are about a million coach guns out there. Which ones would give me the best perfomance for my buck? I after performance over appearance, although the combination at a good price would be best.

Thanks again,

Patrick

I inherited a mossberg 20 ga pump "home defense" shotgun with a 18.5 inch barrel (choke unknown) and I purchased a 28 inch hunting barrel (full choke) for it. Just for the heck of it, I patterened it at about 25 yards useing 6 shot with both barrels. I was suprised to find the spread of the short barrel was not that much greater at that range then the long barrel. Since I mostly hunt quail, and my shots will be fast and close, I see no problem using the shorter barrel for hunting. The shorter barrel is much faster handling but it is harder to keep an even swing thru. This wouldn't be a problem with deer or maybe turkey , but stick to close range shots.

Now asw far as I can tell, the difference between a 18" full choke and a 28" full choke is at bests a few percentage points. Is worth patterning differnt ammo, but most full chokes toss full choke patterns with at least some loads reguardless of the length of the barrel.

Have not found full choke to be the best choice for slugs.

Haven't hunted big game with a stubby barreled shotgun...have hunted deer with barrels as short as 24" and squirrels with an 18" tube. That short barrel was choked full and full....and that's the patterns it gave with most loads tested.

Outside hammers do have one advanatge: you can tell from across the room if that gun is ready to fire or not.

My Stoeger coach gun, with fixed Modified and IC chokes, throws very wide patterns. However, hear in PA, when I hunt pheasants, they often flush right at my feet, or I'll spot them in a hedge row, hunkered down, only a few feet away. In these cases, a wide pattern is great! I've bagged a couple with the coach gun. I love it for going into really thick cover, but I have to restrict my shots to about 20 yrds.