Bought one yesterday afternoon and test shots are fantastic.
A bit of background, a gang has started visiting my area. I've now had two encounters; an armed confrontation at my front yard and a drive by that involved them yelling at me that they "were back."
It eventually went up to four involved; the big guy who started to jump me literally sneered at my glock. Seriously. he smirked and asked me "Are you really ready to spend the rest of your life in prison for killing a 17 year old?" Nothing more needs to be said about that, since he was obviously 20-30 years old and a big, badassed thug who was ten feet tall and bullet proof.
In any case, after that, I will not leave the house without a handgun, and I have been walking out the door with a rifle anytime I had reason to at night. I'm the neighborhood watch now. Rather than use any of my other weapons as main battle weapons I chose the old fashioned coach gun, hoping for some increased intimidation factor, and at least, an almost absolutely guaranteed one shot incapacitation at the ranges expected. The pistol is still on the holster and the primary is easily set aside as circumstances dictate.
Testing was really primitive. I took a box of 12 gauge target rounds and a pack of 00 buck with me to the store, and a 5 gallon plastic bucket. I tossed the bucket down at about 30 feet and started shooting. target rounds were devastating; before I had fired 4 sets the thing was literally a skeleton with every flat surface blasted apart. It was hanging together by the heavy rim and bottom and the curved, heavier side material. Even with such a minimal amount of remaining target material, every round hit. when it was finally blasted to pieces no larger than a clay, every round of shot still managed to hit fragments as I did tap drills from side to side. I had nothing to clean up that was larger than four inches in size.
The chokes are apparently very tight, and very, very consistent. (IC & M). The deluxe version comes with interchangeable chokes, so a better set of tubes may be in the future, who knows? Dirt scrapings showed that in these ranges both barrels were putting hits into a 16+' pattern. The first round of buckshot blew off the plastic handle and broke a corner brace, those two pellets at least hit out at the perimeter of the target. The rest of it literally passed through the framework of that destroyed bucket; ground evidence showed about a 14 inch spread for the buckshot rounds. (4 rounds fired, each left an individual scar on the dirt of about that length.) I'm not good with recoil, bony shoulders take a beating. I get bruises and broken capillaires just with my 30-06; the recoil pad helped a lot. there was no bruising, but I ache like the dickens today.
All things considered, this gun shot better and cleaner than any other shotgun I have owned, as it appears from this round. The action and barrels are meticulously constructed. So precise that it surprised me. The machining is immaculate. By all appearances, this thing will be regulated at dead center with both barrels at far past 50 feet, every shot kicked up dirt exactly where it should have, not any variation visible. I bought the "nickel" version, which looks very suspiciously like just a stainless steel barrel and action.
The wood, although it is a nicer piece of walnut (yes, a coach gun with REAL WALNUT) that has a minimal amount of pretty nice figuring. It has the lamest excuse for some cut checkering I have ever seen. The pores were not filled before the spray lacquer was applied, so the glossy and plastic looking stock is really far worse than it should be. It needs to have a real checkering tool applied to clean it up, and it needs to be stripped, oiled, and done right some day. The admirable shooting iron was just attached to a mediocre, yet decent piece of furniture.
$500 was the price I paid, but I know that they can be found for far less around the internet; the least expensive I found was $400. the base model can be had for $300+, but IMO, it might be stupid to buy the base model. It has no recoil pad, plain walnut stock, and fixed chokes. With a difference of only $100+-, the recoil pad and replaceable choke tubes alone add easily $100 in value. If a person hates nice wood, never plans on using different chokes, and is willing to use a $40 slip on recoil pad, whatever floats your boat. Something to think about is resale value, and this package will probably return a hell of a lot more money on the open market when reselling.
This is a fine firearm, they are using the same actions that are put into their fowling doubles at over $1k. The alternative of a $300 version isn't even close in quality. It represented a good value at $4-500, for what it is, and with a package like this compared to the $300 or higher prices of others, saving $100-150 is kinda pointless., IMO.
