Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns Winchester SX3?

Reliable?
Any experience with the SX3 for a turkey waterfowl pheasant shotgun?

One of the most dedicated waterfowlers that I know uses one. You should see how beat up that shotgun is. He loves it.

I think most users really like the SX3. However, my son had one that was an absolute piece of crap. It patterned 30" high and 18" left at 40 yards. It also jammed very reliably with anything you tried to run through it. That shotgun was so bad it was obvious that it was the definition of a true lemon. The dealer took the gun back and allowed a full price exchange for a Benelli auto.

This one had the sticky stock syndrome and went back to Winchester for recall. It came back with stiff molded synthetic stocks.
Does $550 sound like a good price?

I’d say so, if the condition is descent.

$550 is a great price for an SX3 in any sort of decent shape.

I've had an SX3 Waterfowl 3 1/2" gun for about 7 years. Bought it used. Gun sold new for $1100+ over 10 years ago. It also got the Duratouch gooeys. Sent it back and it was returned looking like a brand new gun.

I mostly use it for turkey hunting. An Indian Creek choke tube and a Winchester Longbeard XR in #5 shot and you gotcher self one NASTY turkey machine. I put a Burris red dot on top of mine to keep POI precise my where it is maximized.

This one is fresh back from the recall and though the stocks are brand new, Winchester re-used the old recoil pad.

Did that on mine, too.

No real issue be wise the pad is still good to go. But for as badly as they botched the whole Duratouch thing and as long as it took to get the gun back from them (like 10 1/2 months for mine) you'd kinda THINK a new pad to match the rest of the new finish woulda been a nice gesture. 🙄

This was owned by some duck call guy as a backup/loaner. When it finally came back from the factory, he forgot he owned it!
He didn’t want it back so it’s up in the local gunpusher’s shop.

I have the black shadow 3" model 28 " barrel. I have had no problems with mine. It's easy to take apart for cleaning. Shoots to point of aim 50/50 pattern at 40 yards. What I have found with the invector plus chokes provided with Winchester and Browning shotguns is that the full choke shoots 75% or more
The modified struggles to get 40% and the IC is around 35% at 40 yards. MOGC experience proves once again you can get a lemon in any brand from time to time as well.

i have SX3 it shoots and works excellent great shotgun, my neighbor has 2 of them both of their`s work great too ! that is a good price too !

Hope you've been there and bought it this morning and are now back home fixing to shoot it some ……………...………..

Price seems good enough if in decent condition. I wouldn't let my son's lemon scare you off. As I said, that gun was so messed up it was obvious the next 999 off the line were excellent because that one shotgun got ALL the issues heaped on it alone. Kinda scratching my head over a 10.5 month warranty wait over the well documented sticky stock issue though. That should have been a quick turn around replacement.

I have a super X2 camo model shoots 3 1/2 inch shells bought back in 1999 been flawless.

Yeah. You and me both. Albeit it was not a stock replacement, but rather a strip and dip of the entire gun........it STILL shouldn't have taken anywhere NEAR that long. It's a good thing it wasn't my only shotgun......... It was gone throughout EVERY hunting season from spring gobbler through late goose. 😠

Well, next best thing. I put a Hundy on it just so he knew I was serious.
I'll be gone for over a week, and we'll wrassle over the rest when I get back.

It has the gray Ceracoat finish on the metal, and the only blemishes are a couple of nicks top and bottom of the ejection port. About what I'd put on in the first 100 of skeet or trap.
To be honest I never handled one of the Dura-touch stocks, what did they look like?Was it a thin rubbery coating on the stock?
The stocks it came back with are hard surfaced injection mold plastic with light "pebble grain".

Comes with an extended choke tube labeled only MR, medium range non toxic shot tube?

Since money's tight around here lately, I traded/sold a few smaller things to get the SX3 out of jail.
Social distancing works really well when you wear an N-95 mask. the truckload of folks that rolled into the "state recognized"informal shooting range when I was there testing and patterning the SX3, threw it in reverse and left when they saw me. Dang I wish I'd have thought of this sooner!

On to first impressions,
Lightweight. Yay! Since it's not a target gun for me, I'll carry a light weight thank you.

Soft shooting. For as light as it is ( 7lbs.), this gun is a very soft shooting gun. It digested 1oz. AA's through 2oz. 3" turkey loads and some steel shot loads, mix and matched.

Fast. Did I say fast? Holy cow what a difference from autos of years ago!

Shoots left. There were no shims with this shotgun, I see you can buy individual shims through a few places, is there somewhere to buy the whole set, like they were in the original box?

Have you tried calling Winchester?

Yeah, my voicemail is unanswered.

How far left?