Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns o/u shotguns

Buckster
I agree! A 686 black onyx is a favorite for shooting. It is just like the BL-4 and I seem to do better with them than just about anything...
art

I owned a Ruger Red Label and really ejoyed it but sold it when I quit shooting clays on a regular basis. The last couple of times I shot Sporting Clays I used a Browning Citori 625 Sporting model and it was VERY nice!!.

Recently, I purchased a Weatherby Orion Grade III for all around use because I've always like the way they look and feel. I haven't shot it yet though so the jury's still out on how well I do with it. Does anyone here have experience with these? If so, how are they for durability???

A truly "sweet" over/under is the older, Belgium-made Browning Superposed. It has been the "standard" by which ALL other over/under shotguns have been judged for more than half a century.

Look for a good used one and spend what it takes... and you'll never need another one. I've had two of 'em (one skeet gun and one field gun) for over 40 years and I have always been totally satisfied with the gun, it's balance and it's weight-for-gauge.

Generally, most Superposed owners take good care of their guns... so the vast majority of the guns will be in excellent condition. However, carefully check-out ANY used gun before you buy it.

In fact, with an expensive used gun like the Superposed, you might ask the owner to take it to YOUR (not "his") gunsmith for a written evaluation as to it's "condition".

Of course, YOU will have to pay for it, but that's better than spending several thousand dollars for a used gun only to find it's a piece of junk.

Jus' my 2�...


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

What price range? What gauge or "bore" as some say? I own a bunch of shotguns. As far as O/Us, I have a Citori 28ga, Beretta 686 20ga and a 101 20ga. SKB builds good guns for the money. There are some very nice Rizzini guns available, which by the way include Fair and Sig Arms. Weatherby O/U shotguns are a good value. Weatherby are both SKB and the current guns are built in Italy. I think everything Ruger builds is solid but I am not a Red Label fan. Good O/U guns will start at about $1000.00 (used)however ocassionally some very nice guns will surface for $800.00 or $900.00. New guns on average will be $1400.00 and up. There are quite a few really nice guns from $1500.00 to $2800.00. I like Beretta guns. They fit well, look good and I shoot well with them. All of these shotguns are good guns in my opinion. Please understand, fit, balance and handling are important if you're ever going to shoot well witha shotgun. You have more good choices now than ever. Good luck and have fun. Gregory

+1 on the Beretta 686/687 series! I have owned Red Labels, A Citori or two and Winchester 101's. I liked them all but the Beretta wins hands down for me when it comes to actually hitting what I shoot at.

Bob

Rugers have a poor reputation among shooters that fire a lot of shells and you hardly see any used in my area for skeet or sporting clays. A friend who I shot with and is a top sporting clays shooter used one until it broke and it too almost two years to get it fixed. Kesslerings gun shop in washington state will not recomend them at all and the owners are experianced high volume shotgun shooters and have been selling a lot of field and target shotguns for longer than the 38 years I have been going there. Hard to beat a Browning Citori they are availible in dozens of models and I have must have owned nine or ten and never had one miss a beat.

The real sleeper in the used over under market is the old Marlin model 90. I've owned and shot almost all of the major brands of OU's and now do 90% of my shooting with a 50+ year old Marlin model 90. Better than 10,000 shells through it in the past 12 months with 100% reliability and absolutly zero signs of action wear. I've also put 1000 to 1500 through my 20 and 16 ga versions with the same performance. I have yet to hear of one that was worn out. $400 will buy a real nice 12 ga version.

How can you go wrong with a 100% built in the USA OU produced by an icon of American gun manufacturing.

Good shooting,

Weagle

I was in the market for a new double about 6 months ago. I shot a whole lot of different guns, and examined the fit and feel of many more.

It came down to the Berretta and the Browning Citori for me. Both fit like they were custom made for me. Either would have suited my needs just fine. Both had great reputations. I struggled to make a decision knowing which ever one I chose, I would have always wondered how much better the other one was.

In the end the browning felt better in my hands, and the wood on the example I could buy was far better. The funnyn thing is that I have never wondered about the berretta since as I thought I would. Probably the reason being that I killed the first 13 birds I shot at with the Browning until I missed a second shot at a quail out of a covey.

I think I went another 5-6 kills in a row after that. The fit is so critical that it should be far adn away the very highest priority. The Ruger rib was way too high for me. With my cheek to stock planted tight I could not see properly over the rib. The CZ fit my stature, but every gun I looked at was roughly finished and just not something I would be proud to own. Others had fit or finish issues for me as well. Only the Beretta and the Browing made the short list.

In the end, the Beretta lost out for no good reason other then I had to make a decision, and the Browning just felt "right". Especially in the grip area.

Pick them up mount them to your shoulder with your eyes closed. Get alligned as you think you should be and then open your eyes. Is it the sight picture, or visual you were expecting? Are the barrels pointing where you expected? When I did this my barrels on some guns were consistantly to the left or right. With the Beretta and Browning they were dead on the money every time.

I wish you well, Aside from a great double the only thing better is a pointing dog!

take a look at the skb line. i have an older 685 12/20 combo that look fantastic. never had a problem and the greener lockup is among the strongest actions outthere if not the strongest. i find the skb wood to have more figure than the brownings and berettas of the same price. mine was used for 1500.00 for a 12/20 combo with briley extended chokes. one thing i don't like about the rugers and it's why i stay away from them, is the automatic safety. if you aren't familiar with these, the safety is activated every time you open the gun up. it will acount for more missed birds than you will ever know. it wouldn't seem to be hard to remember to flick the safety off, but you will. everyone i see that owns one does it. the other problem is the triggers. i have heard from numerous gunsmiths that the triggers are junk. depending on how much you want to spend, if you can afford a 2800.00 gun, take a look at ceasar guerini. they're among the nicest figured o/u's on the market that are still affordable. citoris are built like a tank, but i also can't find one that fits. ditto on the berettas. maybe you would have better luck. the new remington premier upland models are pretty nice too. have seen them for 1700.00. by the way, they are made in brescia, italy by the same people who make the ceasar guerinis. keith

All of you are crazy!


Franchi Alcione

Weatherby Athena

I think weatherby Athena's and SKB's are the same gun?

they used to be. now the weatherby's are made by fausti of traditions fame. bad move on wetherby's part if you ask me. they should have stayed with miroku who makes skb. by the way, guess who makes the citori? miroku. keith

The only thing SKB and Miroku have in common is that they are both Japanese gun manufacturers.

Miroku built a lot of guns for Charles Daly and of course starting in the 1970's starting building many of the Browning firearms.

SKB was imported by Ithaca and also built guns for Weatherby. They also sell guns under the SKB brand.

One of the other major Japanese manufacturers was Nikko. They built the Winchester 101's, 23's and the Nikko Golden eagle guns. Nikko is out of business.

Weagle

I have a Red Label in 12, it's alright.
However, I just bought another franchi Renesaince in 20 gauge, and love it= however, I'm a die hard franchi lover anyway!

Cat

I started my O/U ownership with a nice Grade III Citori, nice field gun, bad for anything in the trap/skeet/sporting clays area. Next moved to a Citori Trap, good gun, bad fit, did run my first ever 100 straight with it though. Then came another Ultra XT Citori, again just didn't fit right, moved to a Remington 3200, fit but couldn't hit anything with it, bought a Citori Plus Trap gun, it did fit and I could shoot it pretty good but wanted something better so I traded it in on a Kolar. I now have what I consider one of the best trap guns made. It fits, it hits what I aim at and it looks darn good. I would have save a few bucks if I had just bought it in the first place.
http://www.kolararms.com/images/trap/trapgun.jpg
http://www.kolararms.com/competition/gun.cfm?GunID=2

When it comes to durability the Brownings certainly hold up. At our club there is one shooter who is now in his late '70's. Recently he told me he bought his for about $268, shot it hard (competitively) for 34 years and then had it rebuilt. I think he said the rebuild cost was $475 or $500. He expects this gun to last him until he quits shooting. At the rate he is going this may be a lot of years yet!

I agree... I've got two Lightning-grade, Belgium-made Browning Superposes in 12 gauge.

One is bored "skeet & skeet" which I gave to my oldest son along with one share of only 300 issued shares of the skeet club stock when I stopped shooting skeet.

The shares went to the first 300 members of the club... and are more of a "prestige" item than anything else.

The other Superposed is my field gun bored improved cylinder and modified that my wife gave me for Christmas back in the early 1960's that she purchased new for $495.

Both guns have seen a lot of shooting... and I've never had any problems whatsoever with either gun. Both guns are still "like new" except for the small barbed-wire scratch one of my sons put on the fancy-grade wood of the butt-stock of the field gun.

Butttttttttttt... what-the-hay... that gun have seen a lot of "mileage" in the field, hunted both by me and my two sons at various times throughout the years. So I have no complaints.

Both Brownings are pre-inter-changable choke tubes... and I'm glad. I have never liked the "look" of the muzzles with the inter-changable choke tubes.


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

Does anyone know anything about the "new" 101's. I see in an online catalogue up here they are avaiable again.

One beautiful thing about the Superposed; it came with a lifetime warranty...

What a sweet deal!!