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Yesterday I bought a new .410 stoeger side by side to start my two young sons on. Cost $430. Full choke on both barrels. Today I put a few target shells through it. The right barrel seems to shoot OK. The left barrel impacts about 6-8" to the right at 15-20 yards. I don't have a whole of experience working with shotguns other than turkey loads. My friend was with me and he is a big shotgunner. He seemed to think I need to send it back and have the factory take care of it.

Is he right about that? Are they likely to do anything? It is pretty disappointing. Also there are separate triggers for each barrell. The trigger weight on the barrell that shoots OK is very heavy....seems too heavy for a kid.

Two things that affect the point of impact with a shotgun are the fit of the stock to the shooter and how well the barrels are regulated. Building a S X S shotgun that works well is an expensive and time-consuming operation. Honestly, with a $430 s x s, if it shoots every time you pull the trigger and the only things wrong are what you describe, I think you did okay. The trigger might smooth out with use. My guess is, if you return it to Stoeger, and if they do anything about it, they will just send you another one and hope for the best.

I would also have Stoeger replace it.

Yes. Problem #1 is it being a stoeger. I haven't seen any of their double guns that were built properly...even on a sliding scal

The only ones who can do anything about this is Stoeger. This is a problem of barrel regulation and wil entail breaking the solder, realigning the barrels, and then resolder them back together. Unfortunately, it is unlikely you will get anything done as this is an expensive process in the first place and prohibitively so as a repair- especially on a bottom tier product. And that isn't considering the triggers if there is even anything that can be done about them. Odds are one of two things will happen: the gun will be returned to you with the company stating the gun falls within specifications or they will send you a new gun with odds being even at best it may be as bad or worse than what you have.

This is the bane of bottom tier firearms, especially SxS and O/U guns. These are quite expensive to build correctly as much of it requires hand fitting which is why decent ones are relatively expensive. To sell them at such low prices something has to give and that entailing hand fitting is the first to be cut. I think it was Bruce Buck who once said something like, "Don't check point of impact of both barrels of a double barrel shotgun. Whatever discrepancy there is will forever mess with your head."

I've heard of guys fixing POI issues on cheap doubles with round files and careful chamfering(offset chamfer). I've a friend that zeroed his turkey gun in this manner on a cheap Yildz. It's worth researching if Stoeger doesn't replace it with bbls that have proper POI.

You might want to try 30-40 yards. This will give you a better idea on the barrel regulation. If still bad, send it back to Stoeger.

Back in the 90’s I bought a used Stoeger 12ga that did the same thing. Sold it at the gun show.

If it is off at 15-20 yards it will off even more at longer distances. There is no "English" causing the shot charge to curve back in. Patterns with the 410 are traditionally shot at 20 yards due to the small shot charge. At 30 and especially 40 yards the patterns may be sparse enough to have difficulty determining where the center even



I hadn't heard of that with shotguns but that is what was attempted to fix the barrel regulation problem on the cheap $5000 double rifles sold through Cabela's a couple decades ago. It didn't work too well. I would suspect the process outdoor also open up the choke some which may not be desireable with a 410. It would probably be easier to send the shotgun to Briley to see if they could thread it for their non-concentric choke tubes though I believe that would be about the price of the Stoeger if not more.

woodsmaster,

This is not just a problem with bottom-tier doubles. Have seen it with FAR more expensive shotguns, both SxS and over-under. But it is indeed rarer with those guns.

Reloader7RM,

Don't know what you mean by "chamfering" in this instance, but yes, POI of a pattern can be changed by filing one side of a fixed choke.I have done it myself, but it normally means the patterns will open up as well.

A Foredom tool with a sanding drum works much better than a file. It can work quite well, especially if you'd like to open the choke anyway.

Thanks for the note. I used a sanding drum to finish it after filing and test-patterning.

A couple of thoughts: You may well find that the importer tells you that this degree of divergence is within specification, but I guess it is worth a shot trying to get them to replace it.

If they do knock you back, the first thing I'd do is consider the way you are assessing POI. For a shotgun to be used on moving critters, the way to assess POI is to put an aiming mark on the target, stand up, focus on the aiming mark, mount and fire. IMHO it is a mistake to do it by resting the gun and aiming along the rib,if that is how you've been doing it, because that won't necessarily tell you where it will hit when you mount and fire normally. As well, by holding it down on a rest, you affect the way it moves between the firing pin striking the primer and the shot charge leaving the muzzle - even a .410 will move.

I'd also try it with the loads you want to use - maybe try a few different cartridges to see whether that makes a difference. I'd also get the boys who are going to use the gun to try it.

You could also bring to POI to the left a bit by altering the stock. If you are right handed, a bit of extra thickness to the left side of the comb (not the top) of the butt where your cheek meets it. That way rather than having the right barrel spot on and the left 6" hitting to the right you could have the right barrel 3" to the left, the left barrel 3" to the right, which is not even worth worrying about. Of course if it is to be used by your son/s, this should be done with them shooting, so the gun hits where they look. You could easily do this with an expedient like some cardboard taped in place, to see if it will do the trick, without making any permanent alterations.

As far as altering the chokes is concerned, I think the bores are chrome lined, so this may not be as easy as it sounds..

That is true, barrel divergence issues do occur with higher end guns and they are less frequent. The manufacturer of a higher end firearm is also more likely to fix the problem though I have seen one state being a foot off at 40 yards was "in spec." Even then it wasn't an issue in practice but it was in that person's mind. That is why I used Bruce Buck's comment regarding double guns and have followed it myself.

I thought cross-over (divergence) was deliberately built in to doubles to counter the effct that recoil has on each barrel ie left barrel is left of the centreline so will recoil towards that direction. So the barrels are set with a slight crossover. It's still a matter of getting the crossover correct.

Barrels on doubles are set to converge slightly, to counteract the effect of recoil on POI. With a SxS, the right barrel, being slightly to the right of the centreline of the butt, as well as being above the centre of the buttplate, tends to recoil up and to the right, while the left barrel tends to move up and to the left. This movement is happening as the shot charge is moving down the barrel.

This is part of the reason why testing for POI should really be done by holding the gun as I said earlier - and ideally by the person who'll be shooting it - so that it recoils the same way as it will when shooting in the field. It is also why it is worth testing a few different cartridges, because different combinations of velocity and recoil can also have an effect.Of course all this is usually a lot less critical than it is in a double rifle, as the spread of shot makes up for a fair bit of error - that is where Bruce Buck's advice (above) comes into play.

My recollection may be faulty but I believe the rule of thumb for convergence is a 50% overlap in patterns at 40 yards. Ideally the barrels of a SxS will be on the same plane but this rule gives quite a bit of leeway as the second barrel can be anyplace around the first provided the patterns overlap.

As an example, the right barrel may shoot to the mark at 40 yards and the left barrel would be within regulation if it put its pattern to the right and 9" high provided the overlap met the standard. So, regulation can get a bit tricky to understand and is a reason Bruce Buck is not totally off his rocker.

As for rifles, with the large bores it doesn't matter as long as the two barrels get within a couple inches at 60 yards or something like that. Considering the target size that was considered good enough and generally was. I don't think there was any concerted attempt at getting the barrels to cross over at any given distance, it was just a happenstance of that gun.

A guy I knew that collected and shot small bore double guns claimed proper regulation of them had the bullets ideally running parallel with each other. This allowed one to shoot at longer ranges which makes sense as many of his guns were scoped or at least had scope mounts. I still would not think of such a rifle as a precision instrument but it would probably do as far as most would be willing to shoot suitable game.

Ideally you want each barrel to put its pattern right on top of the other, but that is not always going to be achievable, especially with a mass-produced gun, and especially when you take into account the other variables such teh effect of the load etc. The spread will usually allow a far bit of variance in POI without any practical effect on being able to kill stuff. Bruce's point's a good one, that it may be better not to test it, as it is apt to have you worrying about something that doesn't matter all that much.



Yes, ideally the bullets run parallel to each other. That means the barrels are lined up to converge just exactly the right amount to offset their tendency to move as the rifle recoils. A well-regulated double should therefore put the bullets from the right barrel to the right of those from the left barrel, by the same distance as the distance between the muzzles, at any range. The bullet paths should neither diverge nor cross.

Similarly an O/U double rifle should have the top barrel's bullets print above those from the bottom barrel, separated by the distance between the muzzles. FWIW my own 9.3x74R double does that, though it is sensitive to changes in load. Accurate enough for anything I want to do with it.

Stoeger is often considered the junk food of shotguns. If you complain to Stoeger, they will probably claim that it's "within industry stndards," which is pretty much what Ruger used to say about their Mini 14 rifle.

Full choke with a .410 is pretty useless (though that's a matter of opinion). If I were you I'd sell it and get a 20 gauge with choke tubes, either an O/U or a semi. Recoil with 7/8 ounce loads is not harsh. You will find the ammo a lot cheaper.