Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Best over&under for the money?

I am going to take the plunge,it will have to last a lifetime............

I have the Browning Citori in a straight stock. It has beautiful wood and is a quail harvesting machine. Should be illegal to own.

I really like the Beretta 68_ series for the $; I have three, have used them all a great deal, wouldn't look back. Joel Etchen is a good place to drool...

http://www.joeletchenguns.com/

awe man,you shouldn't have gave me that link.......

Browning Citori

I sure like my Citori Upland FW.

Blaser F3

"For the money".....not nessisarily the "best" or most impressive.....it's really hard to beat some of the lesser known Spanish or Italian shotguns. No one will likely go "Ohhh...Ahhh" at the local gun club when you pull them out, but they will provide years of great service for half the money as a lower priced "name" gun.

Beretta

Browning Citori

You don't mention what type of shooting you do. If you are going to shoot a lot of clays and it needs to last a lifetime, I would look at Krieghoff.

Stoeger combo (Condor) in 12, 20 or 16, 28 are nice & Scheels / Cabella's sell em reasonable. They look & shoot good too. I think mine was under $700. They are imported by Berretta
MC

No votes for the Ruger Red Label?

Its always caught my eye.

A Beretta O/U is just getting broke in a 100,000 rounds and has self adjusting bolt locks for the life of the gun.

The Browning was not designed to run 100,000 to 200,000 rounds Once the Citori "loosens" up they are just loose, no way to adjust them other than a new set of barrels.

Let the flames begin.

Doc

If I were you, I would look hard at the Berettas, Brownings, Ruger Red Label and a few others. You will find that the three I mentioned all fit you differently.

A Citori I can shoot all day, and hit with easily. It automatically lines up just right when I mount it to my shoulder. I have handled only ONE Beretta O/U that ever fit me. The combs all seem too high, so I see too much rib. They shoot high for me, and are hard to hit with. My Red Label lines up fine and is easy to hit with, but the angle of the comb makes it transmit recoil to my face. If you like the way a Citori handles, also look into the Winchester over/unders that are made by FN in Belgium.

Bottom line: Whatever it is, buy the one that fits you best. It will be a joy to shoot and to own.

Complete crock of [bleep].

I know of at least one Citori that has in excess of 160,000 on it, was loose but not terribly so and has been tightened up without a barrel replacement.

I know because my father owns it. Bought it new and we put 1100 rounds thru it the first weekend. 160,000 rounds is probably a conservative estimate. It was getting 20k a summer with an additional 8-9 a winter. It is about 18 years old? IIRC he bought it in 1996-1997 range.

It was gone thru and tightened up by Larry Pylinski. I believe he replaced the internal springs and tightened the lock up. Damned fine shotgun smith. He's also handles his Krieghoff repairs.

If your gunsmith can't tighten up a Citori - don't assume it can't be done.

Call Pylinski here.

I picked up a Marocchi a couple years ago for 400-450.00, very nice guns that aren't really well known. I don't think they import them anymore, but they weren't cheap when they were imported but if you keep an eye out you can still find them fairly reasonable.


Beretta Silver Pigeon is on my wish list though

Anybody handle an aYa?

The only O/U I own is a Beretta 686 Silver Essential (now since discontinued) I picked up brand new for $425 about 12 years ago when a gun shop went out of business. I figure it's worth that much. However the service that comes along with the product is pretty much in the toilet. But the product itself is pretty good.

I'll have to call BS on this one.

I bought a Browning Citori Trap model in 1985 when we put the first skeet range in at our local range. I was mostly a trap shooter then. I became a Class A trap doubles shooter with that gun.

I then got more into skeet shooting and had that Citori fitted with Briley tubes for 20 and 28 gages and .410. I then became a Class AA skeet shooter with that Citori. Even made the all state team one year and was 100 .410 targets short of making the all state team the following year.

I shot at least 10,000 shells a year for 12 years with that Citori. I've shot about 5,000 shells a year through that same Citori for the past 13 years since I quit shooting registered targets. My Citori is not as tight as it was when I bought it, but it is not in any way loose. That's over 200,000 shells through my Citori and it shoots as good now as the day I bought it.