I purchased one yesterday. Plastic stock, 3 inch 12 gauge, 26 inch barrel.
Purpose; to drag in and out of goose and duck blinds in bad weather and not worry about dings and scratches. I have nice over/under and vintage WingMaster, just don't want to bugger those up.
So this isn't intended to be a family heirloom. If it holds up for five or six seasons I will be good with that. I looked at several inertia guns and the cheap Weatherby looked to be the best bang for the dollar. So I am counting on Weatherby customer service should the need arise. It's packaged with a set of choke tubes including IC, Mod, Full, and a long range extended steel shot tube. It also comes with spacers to adjust length of pull, cast off, and drop.
I disassembled it right out of the box, cleaned and lubricated it. Went to the range with a box of clays, and several boxes of shells of different loads and brands to give it a test run. Started off shooting doubles with Remington pheasant loads; 1 1/4 ounce 7 1/2 shot high brass. Gun ran fine and i broke a dozen clays with the Mod choke.
Next I loaded five Federal turkey loads and broke five clays. Then I loaded five Winchester trap loads 1 1/8 ounce loads, no problem there. Those are the lightest loads I will shoot in a 12 gauge. If I want to shoot one ounce loads I use my 20 gauge guns.
Then I moved on to 3 inch Fast Steel # 2 and some 3 inch Winchester drylocks. No issues there. Finally, I loaded a mix of all those from 1 1/8 ounce up to 3 inch turkey loads of 2 ounce lead shot and 3 inch steel shot. These i fired down range as fast as I could pull the trigger. Not a single hiccup.
I haven't owned an auto loading shotgun since I got rid of a Remington 1100 40 years ago. So yes, the noise and movement of the action is a little distracting. Recoil is much less than the same loads out of my O/U or the Wingmaster.
I don't plan to shoot thousands of rounds on the skeet and trap range with this gun. Ducks and geese and maybe a few pheasants. Hopefully it will hold up to that use.
Next session out I will check it on the pattern board for choke - load evaluation.
If any of you have one of these guns and are not embarrassed to admit it, I'd be interested in hearing your experience with it.
