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Good info for beginner shotgunner?

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CJ

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Jun 20, 2003
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Southwest Colorado
I recently ordered a Mossberg 500 combo set to round out my collection. Unfortunately, I have never owned a shotgun. I understand the basics of shooting them, but not about various finer points such as barrel length and selection, ammunition choices, chokes, effective ranges for loads and slugs, etc.

Is there a decent introduction style book or reference to further familiarize myself so that I can better understand shotgun capabilities?
 
Second sm's recommendation.

Recently bought a copy for my nephew from Amazon.com

Some of the material is dated. But all in all a very good book.

Smoke
 
Yup. Brister's book is full of good info. My copy is kinda stained and dog-eared in places. If it wasn't a hard-cover, it probably would have fallen apart long ago.

The longer I've played with shotguns, the more it seems that each one is an entity unto itself. The best way to find out what works is to shoot a lot and experiment. A slug that works great in your gun might be wildly inaccurate in mine. A pet trap load I really like may not cycle a different gun's action or be full of holes at useful distances.

That being said, there are some general observations which can be applied to most guns, chokes or loads. These are covered in depth not only in Brister's book, but in the excellent series of posts by Dave McCracken. Use the SEARCH function here and check out the shotgun forum for all the "101" threads. They are a goldmine!

In fact, I'd wager that if you get as much range time as you can, while spending your off-time perusing the 101 threads and asking questions on this forum, your knowledge and skills will grow substantially.
 
Not to toot my own horn, CJ, but the 101 threads started by me and contributed to by folks with centuries of shotgunning experience among them may be just what you're looking for.

Other good sources include Brister's masterpiece and work by Don Zutz and Bruce Buck.
 
i second the 101 threads. they are the best way for a new shooter to start learning. just type in "101" in the seach window and "Dave McCracken" in the author window and limit the search to the shotgun forum.

after reading the 101 threads (there are a whole bunch of them), you can do a search for other specifc questions you have. most basic questions have been discussed here. finally, if all else fails, just ask - that's really why we are all here.
 
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