Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire any of you guys have a Benelli Nova?

I have an 870 and a Nova. I quit using the 870. I think the Nova is just a little nicer gun, but not by much. The feed interlock on the Nova is a little nicer, IMO, and I like how the chokes mount.

When I got the 870, I spent the extra bucks to get the 3 1/2" model. For me, that turned out to be a waste. I've never shot a 3 1/2" cartridge in either gun.

I have owned three.

I picked up a 26" NWTF model that a guy won at a banquet.
My son bought a Super Nova.
My youngest son got a youth Nova 20 ga.

They have all worked flawlessly from 90 degree dove hunting to negative temp ice and cold duck/goose hunting. From clay pigeons to real pigeons and everything in between.

I just recently bought a Browning Cynergy and sold my youngest son's youth 20 ga. that he traded me for my NWTF shotgun.

The only complaint I can come up with is the noisy forearm. They certainly are the work trucks of the shotgun field IMO.

Personal preference plays a lot in shotguns, fit is the most important feature bar none.

870s just don't fit me. Love my Nova and Ithacas.

Bought one not long after they were introduced specifically for waterfowl hunting. The shotguns I had either couldn't take steel or choked up on dirt when laying in a harvested field. The Nova has worked flawlessly. Benelli offered a recoil reducer as an add-on. Installed in a bracket in the stock with two sheet metal screws if I remember correctly. It was easy anyway. To me 3" shells feel like 2-2/4" and 3-1/2" feel like 3". (Since it's for waterfowl weight and balance issues don't apply as with upland, where 2-3/4" shells are what you want anyway.)

Around 300 hunts over maybe 6 years, more than half in the salt, chasing waterfowl. Never cleaned ONCE in that time. One day it didn't fire, so decided to clean it. It worked fine again after. Any questions?














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The Nova is one of those guns I really want to like. I've had 3 at various times picked up used at good prices like you did. From a functional point they may be the toughest pumpgun made. But I ended up selling all of them.

They are also the heaviest of the pumps which was an issue with the way I hunt. I could just never get comfortable with the way they handled. I have used an 870 for a long time and have started using an older Benelli M-1 for most of my hunting recently. I suppose if I had started with the Nova and had not gotten used to other guns I'd like them a lot more.

You'll probably be very happy with it.

Nice pics Kamo


I've had one for 10 or so years. It wouldn't be my only shotgun, but I take it out when I want the capabilities of a 3 1/2" shell and I'm sure there are much better guns, but for the price it's worked perfectly fine.

I've got a handful of other 12's and a few 20's to pick from, depending on what I'm in the mood for. Last few years, I usually grab one of the 20's, just cause.

I bought one a few years back thinking that a friend was going to take me Goose hunting as I didn't want to take my Berreta's into the places he said we were going to go.

Fired maybe 2-3 boxes through it so far....noisy and is not smooth at all, but as the others have stated it appears to be tough. Not what I would suggest for upland hunting, but Duck and Geese should be fine.

Run out of targets, the Benelli Nova makes it's own!



To me the Nova just seems to ask to be beat like a rented mule.

Not sure if you can scratch it? As mentioned, we seen how dirty they can get and still work. They do everything you ask it to do, and never complain.

Very reliable gun, if it fits you, it will function for you.

For me, it is a little round through the pistol-grip area. Sometimes when I shoulder athe Nova , the vented-rib is slightly misaligned. Opperator error that I blame on the roundness of the grip!
See, if it wasn't for that, the Nova would never miss it's target!

These days I tend to grab my Beretta, but one feature I did like a lot about the Nova, above and beyond its being virtually bullet-proof, is the ability to hit the button under the fore grip that would allow a chambered shell to be shucked, and would prevent a shell from the magazine to be picked up. Good for those times when I'd be running #4s for a teal hunt and a pair of geese would come honking in. Eject the #4, grab a load of BBs and toss her in the pipe and hammer one of the geese, then back to teal. No muss, no fuss. Fancy it ain't, but I put mine through hell and truly abused it, and it never failed me. Well OK, just once. But I'll own that.

They do work even when abused, but so don't most other pump guns built since the 1950s, or even earlier.

I much prefer an Ithaca 37 and a Rem 870 over the Nova.

I had no idea you were at the battle of Stalingrad.

There are lots of pumps that I prefer over the Nova as far as aesthetics, fit and feel, etc. There are none, however, that I shoot any better than the Nova, that can take ANY weather conditions and still function like the Nova, and none that I care LESS about as far as damaging/abusing. I have killed ducks with that gun minutes after retrieving it from the bottom of a salt marsh creek, from a coastal inlet's bottom after tossing it toward the beach from a sinking duckboat. It has been submerged in beach front rollers and in swamps. It has been at the bottom of layout boats on the Atlantic. I have used it to bust ice and as a walking staff in deep snow. And as stated, I never even cleaned it once (I hunt a lot before work and go from the field directly downtown).

Total and utter neglect, and I'm well aware of it. But then, multiply 300 and what, fifteen minutes? That works out to around 75 hours I didn't spend cleaning it. I'd rather have that time than the few hundred for a new gun every time--if I needed to replace it, which never happened. What's not to love about that? Nuttin'!

Edit: Have to slightly and respectfully disagree with the quoted statement above. I have seen many friends' guns and personally had issues with LOTS of other pumps. Brownings, Remingtons, Mossbergs and Winchesters. Not knocking them, but I have a little experience with a lot of different kinds of shotguns in the field, and the Nova is one I will stand by as far as being bullet proof, and a damned STEAL for the dough.

I really don't have a dog in this hunt as I don't hunt with pumps much anymore. There's a Nova in the safe, but that was my brothers and will be my sons very soon. I have a BPS 10 and I'm getting too old and fat to lug that around. But all the guys I hunt with that carry Novas swear by them. They don't treat their guns very nice either. One guy had a rattle in the fore end and found a fix on the internet , but I think that's pretty much standard for these guns. I have NEVER heard of one breaking down in the field. Same can't be said about 870s. Broken springs, followers, lost plugs, trigger mechs, I've heard it all. There's a reason these Italians have been in the gun business for over 500 years.

I run Benelli and Beretta semi-auto myself and have never had any problems. 1000s of rounds. Swamps, fields, lakes, potholes, skeet, trap, sporting clays, all good to go. Which reminds me...I should clean em after last hunting season.

Kamo - Congrats on the jewelry! Well done! Sup wit da spittin' image Kamo Dude looking same-same?

You can field strip a Nova using no tools too, BTW. There is a 'nipple' on the magazine tube cap that is designed to knock out the pins keeping the trigger assembly in place.

I'm with you 100% on the 'used to run a pump' but grab a semi these days mostly thing. My daily shooter is a slightly tricked-out Beretta AL390. One of my closest buddies is the owner of a company that manufactures aftermarket shotgun parts of all sorts (surecycle.com) and that is one he got for me new but dirt cheap. He then decked it out for me at the shop mechanically, and had it dipped by a fellow shotgun industry buddy down in TX.

He is now in full production mode with his shotguns:(srmarms.com)

As far as the bands, thanks. I've been lucky. I have friends who've never gotten a banded bird in 40 years local hunting. I got 9 or 10 the first few years after I started. But then I guess with numbers being what they are, a silly fellow in the field 60 days a season is a wee bit more likely to luck on a banded bird than the guy who averages a baker's dozen as far as days afield. But I dunno'.



Oh, and that other dude is my big brother. Ugly, ain't we?

I've got a A390ST. I think they called it the Silver Mallard. That thing is bullet proof. No "O" rings, just a hard workin gas piston. Best auto made IMHO.

Had a blue wing come screaming by just off the deck while I was straddling a log half asleep. I take the shot from the hip and the recoil hits me in the jewels which I of course promptly grab my package and drop my gun in the drink. I recover, see the bw circling around, reach down into the marl, grab my 390, drain the flotsam jetsam out of it and one time the bird stone dead. I ate those thing breasts very rare with great pleasure. What a great gun.

I convinced myself I needed 3.5" Benelli SBEII because I was tired of my 10. Okay...I wanted a new gun. After a few years I've found myself going back to my 390 gas gun over the SBE inertia because of recoil. Both are great guns and I'll never get rid of them, but it's funny...the older you get....

I lost my little bro in a car accident (actually jeep v. cement truck) a few years ago. He was my waterfowling compadre. I buried my bands with him. To honor him, the first shell in the chamber on opening day is one of his. I have 35 left.

Thank you for sharing that about your brother. I am sitting here moved. My brother happens to be behind me on the couch with my wife as I type. I'm deeply saddened learning about your loss as well as a little proud, maybe. Only a fellow die-hard waterfowler understands the significance/importance of the bands, maybe. I think I do. Take care friend. Sorry if what I tried to convey didn't make sense to anyone but me.

Thanks for the kind words. Others may not, but I get it.

I am city born and raised, and didn't start trying to learn to hunt until I was in my late 20s. The first duck I finally managed to take was a beautiful drake black duck. It was on Thanksgiving day at daybreak on my beloved Great Marsh. I was with my brother that day (he asked me if he could come with me), and I took a pic with the camera using a timer. It's one of those shots where we look contentedly thrilled, and feeling that which can only be felt between brothers doing something they love together. Both my brother and I, as well as my folks, have a copy of that shot on their fridges at home. Anytime you'd ever consider coming this way to share a blind, let me know. You'd be most welcome, and I'd be honored to host. Take care.