First Semi-Auto Shotgun purchase

[Frank B.]

I have been looking to purchase a new semi-auto shotgun for deer and turkey hunting and want it in a 26" barrel. I have no use for anything over the 2 3/4" and 3" shell capacity.
In talking to a gun dealer that sells all the brands and makes nothing extra no matter what the brand recommends the Benneli M1 field.
I am a southpaw (lefty), and looked at the Left handed Synthetic, camo, and the Montefeltro with satin walnut finish models to purchase.
Can anyone advise or recommend anything?

[birddog]

Have you picked up each gun yet?? They both 'feel' very different from the other both in the hand and when swung.

The M-1 is your best bet in my opinion. you'll have less of a headache finding hunting accessories for it as well. It's made to take more abuse in my opinion - especially with the synthetic stock set-up they sell them with..

You can buy wood for the M-1 but you can't buy synthetic for the Monte. ... if this tells you anything

I like the 'feel' of the M-1 better too.. the fore is thicker than the Monte which i like cause I've got some rather large paws.


...unless your eyes are closed to it already, don't rule the SBE out quite yet .. it may be a couple hundred bucks more but it's a gun few can bad mouth and will fill the bill with all practical hunting loads.

[remarkable]

Pretty good advice posted above. The Camo M1 affords better protection and makes a very rust resistant finish. If you have no use for 3 1/2 shells the M1 is a great choice. Check out the 24", it swings much better on a M1 Field. I own a 24" M1 Field, Super Black Eagle and a Nova. All 24" Camo.

[tj]

i have to agree.
i use to have an M1 with a 24in barrel and it was a great gun and man do i miss it!!!
since you want the gun for only deer and turkey hunting i'd go with the 24in over the 26in.
i have a nova with a 24in bbl and its a great turkey gun. i have a SBE with 26 bbl and im just not sure id like to have to tote it around in the underbrush.
keep in mind that benelli recievers run about to inches longer then most other manufacturers. my SBE is almost 48in long and them add another 1-2inches for a choke tube and its getting a litttle long. the M1 with 24in barrel was nice and light and very easy to carry plus it has sling studs.

my vote, Benelli M1(if you want 3 1/2 the SBE is awesome) with a 24in barrel in black or camo.
maybe you should check out the stoeger 2000 also.

get your self a good turkey tube and a slug tube (the C tube works fine for me) and your set with this combo.

good luck!

[manley]

I personally am a lefty also and i'm telling you don't buy a left handed gun. I bought the left handed Monte and had a heck of a time trying to sell it just get right handed.

[Frank B.]

I went to the Benelli dealer today and swung a couple in M1 and Montefeltro. The M1 felt great to me, and the Montefeltro seemed a little too fancy for the woods to shoot deer and turkey. I do have one concern though. I noticed that the M1 only has one sight bead or red line in front and the Montefeltro has the sight bead in the middle as well as at the end of the barrel. Will this make a difference when aiming the M1 with only the red line sight in front?

[remarkable]

Sure happy you followed up on the Benelli M1, it is a super nice autoloading shotgun. Don't get to concerned about the middle bead which is on the Montefeltro, Super Black Eagle, and the Nova. Equally, the difference in the high rib vs low rib. Again I own a M1 Field (no middle bead, high rib) a Montefeltro, (middle bead, low rib) a Nova (middle bead, low rib) a Super Black Eagle (middle bead, low rib) and a Super Black Eagle (middle bead, high rib). They a all shoot the same. If you are concerned about sight plaining for Turkeys or Deer get a Aimtech or B Square Saddle mount and go with either a scope or optics. My Nova is setup with 24" Camo, Aimtech Saddle Mount, ATN Digital headsup and a Briley Hevi Shot Turkey Choke. This is a super turkey gun!

[birddog]

Glad to here you went and picked them up and swung each. The monte is exactly that .. more fancy, a gun that's suited more for wingshooting and occasional trips to the clays range rather than setting up for gobblers and whitetails.

The mid-bead is installed for shot alignment purposes. Aiding the gunner in shot placement. A good 'tool' to have and is very inexpensive to have installed to a barrel rib but, this is more for the wingshooter/upland hunter and generaly not the turkey and deer hunter.

give a thought to a few different sighting systems too:

- Fiber-optic iron sights will give you the most practical sighting system for both turkey and deer with quicker target acusition than the following two.

- 30-50mm red dot sights are becoming more popular as time goes by giving the shooter a larger field of view than shotgun scopes and a more acute point of aim than iron sights. My opinion is that this is the 'best of both worlds' (w/o magnification) and is more flexable than a shotgun scope.

- Shotgun scopes are the generally the simplest scopes out there yeilding slight magnifications since your slug guns effective ranges are limited plenty of deer hunters use these on there slug guns, usualy acompanied by a rifled barrel. This combination promotes the best accuracy 'system' for deer hunters. A shotgun scope is not needed at all for turkeys. With the majority of shots under 50yrds and using #4(or smaller) size shot this is not a practical system for gobblers at all.

hope this helps and remember to keep it practical and simple!

Good luck

[tj]

how old are your M1's??
my M1 had a middle bead.

[Wulf]

Frank,


if you don't mind i'd like to throw my 2 cents in here, first off have you looked throught a set of "ghost ring" sights? my practical has a set of them on them and while very odd at first its basic common sense and accuracy all rolled up into 1, putting shot on paper *which what i'm guessing you would use for turkey* all you have to do is have the center post which is the sight in the center of the big hole of a rear sight *trust me once you look at them you'll know what i'm saying* any ways line it up center which is easy to tell becuase the front sight has guard blades on both sides in the style of the M1 Carbine or M1 Garand which has been a very common front sight in the military for years on end and even the M16 shows it to some degree *me bableing sorry* ..any ways once you line the 3 posts center in the big hole just pull the trigger and the shot will pattern where you centered the middle post* ....now for slugs on my system it has the standard white paint but on others you can get the greenish glow in the dark trijicon night sights installed which would aid help with them. basically the way shooting slugs works is you take the 2 dots on the rear sight *which is on each side of the big whole* and line it up even with the dot on the far post of the front sight and once you have a level aim pull the trigger the gun will do the rest, I personally have put 3 slugs within about 1.2" group with them all touching each other @ 25 yards in an indoor range, so i have a good feeling the system is pretty accurate, considering i was shooting this gun out of the box


now if your not completely focused on iron sights "as they are so loosely called these days" you have a whole world of options open to you either as holo sights and red dot sights both of which i will personally vouch for, i've used red dot's up to 40mm on .22 pistols and even 9mm carbines and they can cut bullet hole for hole as long as you hold on the same spot, you do have to "zero" them in as a regular scope, but since there is no magnafying optic's there is no paralex and no POV problems, furthermore on the redot and holo, if you don't have the sight heald center and straight you won't see the dot at all, ...now on to the holo, it has a slimer profile on the weapon with only a small little "window" sticking up on the weapon ..and here again once its held straight you will see the retical in the center of the glass. with close range turkey and deer either would be a good choice unless your looking to use slugs up to 75 80 yards then i'd say go with a standard shotgun scope and look for an M1 and a good scope thats cozy to you

another thought on the holo sights, both the EOTECH and the Bushnell is made by the same company, there are only a few minor differences between the two *one being the EOT has a metal shroud all the way around the sight while the Bushnell doesn't* and that the EOT is supposide to be LEO or MEO, the interisting thing here now that there made from the same company is that the demo that EOT sends to there dealers is a "broken" model that actually has a .22" hole all the way through the glass, ..Why might you ask"which i did with the deer in the headlights look* ..the answer was simple....it still works" with a push of a button i saw the retical as clear as day even tho it had a whole in the lense...very astonishing stuff for me so thats why i ordered a bushnell that day [img]smile.gif[/img]


again just my 2 cents ..sorry to rant so much hope something in it will help you


Wulf

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