Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Favorite Shotgun set up for dove?

Classic!!!!

Now THAT'S a funny story!

I have an 870 Rem.12 gauge that i worked over the forcing cone.

It does a number on dove,quail and turkeys.

I ran for years an 1100 Magnum 30" full 12 gauge.
WW Superhandicap 7.5's.

It was top gun at a couple F&W areas, repeatedly.

Also ran an 1100 Trap once in a while.

Then they went non toxic shot.

Have run a couple 20's and 12's w steel.
1100 standard w Imp Cyl 6's in 12 gauge last couple of years. Top gun one year.
But I found the 26" bbl a little short and wearing synth stock, the gun overall a little light.

A 28" Remchoke w some added weight to synth stock would be my choice.

Have run an 870 Supermagnum Express 23" Remchoke before I got the last 1100.
It too was top gun a few times, but it wears on ya and doing triples is a no go (so far).

It works but isn't ideal.
I got it like new, cheap.........for 215. It kills turkeys just fine and is short enough for HD.

Slob shooter here, no cherry picking..........no practice, Shoot once or twice a yr (dove hunting) and run around 50%.
Nothing great, just everybody else up there sucks LOL

Did run 8 in a row from the start, some screamers too, but then decided proper form would be to shoot with my head up my azz and ruined it.
Still limited out at 50%............but damn. Just got into a bad string and then finished strong.

Back in 80's a bud had a bad go with a M500.
Miss miss miss.
I had an 870 Special Field 20 ga.

He was blind down from me.

Birds flew by his spot with no shots.
Again and again.

WTH?

I stepped out of the high weeds and saw his gun out in front of his blind, muzzle into soil..........like a fence post.
He was so mad he pumped it so hard he broke the tabs on the plastic trigger housing.

Gun was Kaput.

Next day we drove to Lengel's Gun Shop and he bought an A5 20 guage Invector. New.
Went back out for dove, maybe ten shots before he connected.

He was happy LOL.

A Mossberg 500 isn't a Model 12 and even so..............I didn't get a chance at his temporary fence post LOL.

Battue,

I'm 100 miles east of you. Almost no doves here, no one hunts them. I see a pair on the powerline
at home, never see more than a few.

You hunt them in your area, or traveling to them?
I have relatives along I-81, they used hunt them, pretty old now.
Migratory route thing, or am I missing something.

Have went with a friend who used to hunt th em before he moved here,
couple evenings sitting watching. Seen a few too far away.

We might have needed different stands, but there really not many birds.


On the good side.

I have never missed a dove.

Dillonbuck,

We used to have many more hanging around. I have one farm close by-just checked it-that will sometime during the season have a good many.Trouble is, it is getting built up on the periphery. He has a lot of corn yet to be cut. When he had cows it was pretty good most of the season. Now the best time has been in the late season when the migratory Birds are passing thru. There will be a couple days when there will be a 200-300 that stop off for a rest and some grain. The shooting can be as good as it gets for a short period of time.

Have a friend who lives South of Pittsburgh, that always finds a couple farms that will have good shooting on weekdays when you have it pretty much to yourself.

Another possibility is the GC is now planting Dove fields on some of the Game Lands. A couple of them should be relatively close to you. Go to page 7, click on a Bird and it will tell you the specific GL. They normally do a good job when it comes to planting habitat. I wouldn't doubt that a few of them will be worth a visit if one does their checking.

http://pagame.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=fdab80363fba4e078b74a69630af1b5f

Remington 1100 28" vr, skeet in 20 gauge. Federal 7 1/2 field loads 'cause they are almost always the least expensive option.

Benelli Legacy 28 ga., IC choke, 3/4 oz. 7.5 shot.

Mostly, I have used my 870 Wingmaster 20ga with I/C choke barrel. It's a '75, so I have two barrels for it. Always worked.
Now that this state has gone non-lead thru out, I switched to my 930 Field and #7 steel for dove . Did well yesterday in Ca.'s Owen's Valley. Didn't get a chance at any Eurasian's, But, back home and wife is getting them ready dinner, whatever that may be, but, it WILL be good. Beers to ya fellow dove chasers!

For decades Dad had only one shotgun, a 12 gauge full-choke Ithaca 37. The good thing with that is, he knew the gun well.

Our limit was 10 doves. One opening day when I was a kid he went nine doves in nine shots. Got kinda cocky about it... Used the rest of the box without another dove downed!

I don't hunt doves often - used to use a 28 ga Model 12 skeet with a Cutts compensator & different choke tubes. It worked pretty well but my shooting improved with a 20 gauge side by side "Ithaca" by SKB.

These days I pretty much hunt all birds with a 12 ga Beretta 390 semi-auto. It's big, black & ugly, but I shoot it better than any other shotgun I've tried.

Danged doves have embarrassed and frustrated me more than a few times over the decades. I have never had a streak like Dad had with 9 for 9. That was quite a morning!

Guy

12 gauge O/U with M/IC chokes and Winchester AA #8.

Dove can be humbling, I bounce back and forth from 40-60% success rate with a few notable strings of a dozen or so back to back but then always start shooting at blue sky to ruin the string. Have had a number of triples including multiple two shot triples especially in Mexico.

My best run in Tx. was when I was a kid and shot an H&R single shot and got 12 dove with 11 shots. I was pumped when I went to check on my dad, he was hunting with our Friend Father McCabe who was hunting in his black and white outfit. I felt bad when I boasted I limited and he only had three birds. He blamed the low success on the Padre's outfit scaring the birds, couldn't have had anything to do with the long winded BS sessions going on. Dad bought some camo duds for the Father but it didn't off set the bull sessions.

Winchester 101 Skeet and skeet

Franchi Affinity 20ga with light mod choke shooting 1oz of either remington heavy dove or winchester AA also 1oz #8 shot. connected on more than 3 doves at a measure 40yds in the past 2 days. the twenty is plenty for doves.
Big Ed

Beretta 20 gauge sporting with 30 inch barrels or my Rem 870 20 gauge "lefty" 28" barrel choked for skeet.

Over a water hole I like a 26” improved cylinder, pass shooting at high flyers, I like a 30” full choke.

At the water hole, I like Handloaded 1 and1/4 ounce # 9 shot. High flyers, I like handloaded 1 and 1/4 ounce #6’s


I like the old Browning A-500 gas guns, I’m probably the only person that ever liked that model.

My favorite dove gun is a Winchester Model 12, 20 ga with a modified choke. YMMV.

Parker Reproduction, 20 or 28 gauge, choked IC and Modified. In the 20, I shoot whatever 7-1/2 shot is on sale at Walmart. (Seems like the last few years. it's been Winchester "Universal.") For the 28, I usually ferret out a few boxes of whatever number 8 shot I can find.

16 gauge Austrian hammer sxs from the 1920s. Choked about how you'd expect a Germanic gun from that period to be choked - really tight and even tighter. Not the gun for 20 yard shots.