Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns Charles Daily 601, 20 gauge

I purchased a Charles Daily semi-auto 20ga for my oldest son back in the 90's. Didn't have it long enough to really evaluate it as it was still a little too much gun for him, so I tripped it.

I'm considering the purchase of a Charles Daily 601, 20 gauge to set up as another turkey gun. Can anyone provide me with feedback on the 601 or the company in general? I didn't realize they were still in business.

I know nothing about that particular gun, but Charles Daly isn’t a manufacturer, but rather a marketer/importer. Contract a foreign company to make some guns and then sell them here. I’m days gone by they brought in some high end stuff. I think more recent times they’re bringing in some Turkish stuff. Not necessarily bad, but do your research.

I have a Daly 301 20ga pump I use for turkey hunting. I have it setup with a Holosun red dot. It’s a good shooting gun. I put a sumtoy turkey choke in it and with federal 3” #9 TSS it puts nearly everything in a 14” circle at 40yds.

Some of their latest offerings are made by Akkar in Turkey.

I don't have first hand experience with this gun either, but as was said above, some stuff Charles Daily imported was higher end but some stuff was cheaper stuff.
The more recent stuff I have seen (in the way of shotguns) have been Turkish made. Some of the Turkish made shotguns are better than others, so you may want to do some research. I think TriStar is a decent Turkish brand shotgun for what you are looking to do.
If you were looking for a clay target gun, that might be a different story.

You can look at Stoeger, too. Decent guns for decent prices. They are owned by Benelli, and made in Turkey. I've looked at them and they seem very nice for the price. I know their inertia shotguns are pretty robust. I think I would trust a Turkish made gun more when it's under the Benelli/Franchi umbrella.

True,

Excellent point.

Daly changes models like a marathon runner changes shoes and this one will soon be gone like the rest....So many good shotguns on the used market.....

I have no experience with current Charles Daly guns, but the autos from the 90s had weak locking blocks that were prone to break. The guns were manufactured to fit a price point and corners were cut. The pump guns held up pretty well, although they probably had similar locking blocks. The pump guns did not cycle as violently as the autos.

Good advice given...I think I'll pass.