36

The Practical ShotgunandThe Need For Speed

n our world of action shooting, the 3-gun format is taking hold. With the improved success of the 3-Gun Nationals (thanksUSPSA) and the well-established Mystery Mountain 3-Gun, your opportunities to get in some quality long gun time aregrowing. Outside USPSA you will find other venues to scratch your long gun itch, such as the SOF and World Champi-onship Tactical 3-gun competitions.

Becoming a USPSA member in 1990 after having spent some time in the slow pursuit of Metallic Handgun Silhouettes andNRA bull’s-eyes, I was immediately hooked on our game of speed, power and accuracy. With some exposure to high-speedshotgunning via bowling pin shooting, my fascination with ever-faster shotguns has become deep-seated. In the years between

Photo courtesy of Winchester

On the move. Jim Wallstuffs rounds into the newWinchester SX2 Practicalmodel. The gun is a direct de-scendant of the BrowningGold used by Bennie Cooley towin the USPSA 3-Gun nation-als.

BY PATRICK E. KELLEY A 14401

FRONT SIGHT • November/December 2001

I

37November/December 2001 • FRONT SIGHT

then and now I have used most of thepopular (and one unpopular) self-load-ing shotguns. I’ve used them with bar-rels from 19.75 to 28 inches, capacitiesfrom 8 to 15 rounds, rigged as tacticalor open, with optics, ports, side sad-dles, Tec loaders, trigger jobs, tuning,and mercury recoil reduction.

Remington 1100/11-87Early on my list of tools was the

1100 Remington. Most of you areprobably familiar with this arm. It pos-sesses the attributes of low recoil (dueto gas operation), good ergonomics,high cyclic rate, easy maintenance, andreasonable affordability. With manyaftermarket parts available, it is the topchoice of many 3-gunners. Except forone thing, we could conclude the arti-cle right here.

Unfortunately, the shotgun thatseems perfect is not, as RELIABILITY,(especially long-term reliability), is aproblem. Practical shooters tend toshoot more than the average wing-shooter, and they shoot long strings ofheavy loads. This is the downfall of the1100/11-87 platform.

The 1100’s problems relate to theinterceptor latch and magazine tube.

We cause the problems with themagazine tube. For capacity purposes,we hang extension tubes on the end ofthe factory tube. If this transition isn’tsmooth, you have problems. Considerthat the shells, follower, and springmust pass by it in two directions. Onmy 1100’s, I use the factory steel fol-lower or one of my own spun out onthe lathe to help glide over any suchproblems. If you must use a plastic fol-lower, keep it clean and smooth.

The larger problems surround themagazine spring. We pay close atten-tion to our pistol recoil and magazinesprings (sometimes too much), but weneglect our shotguns. In the 1100, thisis a serious mistake. As a rule of thumbthe spring should be 8” to 10” longerthan the assembled length of your shot-gun and extension.

The 1100 trigger group contains apart called the carrier release. The car-

rier release is operated solely by theforce of the shell leaving the magazinetube. Really! The thing that allowsyour shotgun to close and feed a liveround is dependent upon the force ofthe shell leaving the magazine tube!How often have you seen 1100’s lockopen, with a round sitting in the ac-tion? Nothing looks wrong, but thebolt has stuck back? Any trouble withfeeding rounds out of the magazinetube can cause the carrier release to“stick” on the carrier stud.

When all goes well, dropping thehammer, activating the disconnect andinterceptor latch, feeding the nextround, tripping the carrier release, plusloading the round and re-setting thetrigger takes about 14 hundredths of asecond. Yes, this is the cyclic rate of the1100 Remington. Shot-to-shot speedstops at 14 hundredths. While it is pos-sible to pull the trigger faster, the dis-connect will not reset until the bolt isfully closed.

This tidbit of information came tome via my 1100’s, and the aforemen-tioned quest for speed. While not

known in the big circles, I was, for a pe-riod of time, (here in my little neck ofthe woods) referred to as “Machinegun Kelley.” During a bowling pinshoot I noticed I was either trigger-freezing or somehow stutter-steppingaround pins. With the attendant fivesecond penalty per pin left on the table,

Photo by Mike Sirchuck

How Fast Can You Go? Author Pat Kel-ley pours rounds through the new Brown-ing. He reports the gun is capable of .11splits. Other guns choke at this speed.

FRONT SIGHT • November/December 200138

this would never do. Only a poorsportsman blames his equipment, but Ihad to know whether I suffered fromtrigger freeze or if the gun was at fault.Having multiple 1100’s on hand, avideo camera, and an operator, I soonfound out more than I wanted. A coolNovember afternoon found my buddyHunter and me out testing one of my1100’s. Hunter was picked because hedid not immediately suggest it waspure folly to think I could outrun a self-loading gun. Careful examination ofslow motion footage clearly showedmy trigger finger pulling the trigger asecond time before the action closed.Now what?

More testing with more 1100’swith a wider selection of ammunitionbrought the same results. Thoughts ofcutting, grinding, lightening andspringing came and went. There wasnothing actually wrong with any of the

1100’s tested, only a built-in finitecyclic rate. What next? I know, I’ll justsell a couple of 1100’s and buy the“world’s fastest shotgun.” A few weekspassed and one of our local gun shops(in this case davesguns.com) called mewith the good news. My new no-ex-cuses, super-duper, wham-bam, spe-cial-operations-team-approved BenelliM1 Super 90 was waiting for me, yeehaw!

Benelli M1 Super 90To many, the Benelli is the be-all

and end-all of shotguns. Known for itsreliability, durability and speed, I pur-chased the “world’s fastest cyclingshotgun” after a years-long affair withthe 1100. Finally, I had found MYshotgun and for a time the Benelli andI got along very well. This particularBenelli was the M1 Super 90 slugmodel, complete with eight-shot tube

extension, side saddle shell carrier, andbarrel-mounted rifle sights. This set-up served me well for nearly two years.In 1997, the quest for speed againlifted its ugly head.

This time the challenge was steel.

The American Handgunner WorldShoot-off Championships set the stagefor the Benelli’s downfall: more pre-cisely, the man vs. man auto shotgunside shoot. Here I am, trying to qual-ify for the final four with Jerry Miculekand Bill Vance setting the pace. Bothwere averaging about two seconds forfive poppers.

In this format, if memory serves, wemade four passes on five poppers withthe best three runs totaled for score.My first run came in at two secondsand change. I’d better speed up if Iwant to play with the big boys! On thesecond pass, the buzzer sounds and the

Understanding the Remington1100 “Interceptor Latch”

Still having trouble with your1100? If all is well with your maga-zine tube, spring, carrier release, andfollower, you may want a good smithto look at the interceptor latch.There are a number of gunsmithsthat work on 1100’s available butShawn Carlock of defensiveedge.netheads my list.

The interceptor latch, its locatingstud, and retainer, are critical toproper timing. Located within the re-ceiver, the interceptor latch is acti-vated by the disconnect tail. Whenyou drop the hammer the disconnectrotates as does its tail. This in turndepresses and rotates the interceptorlatch. The interceptor latch “inter-cepts” the next round in the maga-zine tube. When the bolt is cycled tothe rear the disconnect resets and re-leases the interceptor latch. Once theinterceptor latch clears, the roundthat was being held is free to travelrearward with only the momentumgenerated by the mag tube spring topush the carrier release off the carrierstud. Again we see the importance ofa strong magazine tube spring!

The 1100’s speed-limiting carrier re-lease. In order for the bolt to close, themag spring must throw a shotshellagainst this part.

Photo by Pat Kelley

Photo by Pat Kelley

Kelley’s gun show refugee, reborn andready to race. If you can keep it work-ing, the soft-shooting 1100 winsmatches.

Benelli snaps to my shoulder. The firstshell is out the ejection port, and we arecooking now! As the second target isacquired, disaster strikes. My Benellifails to fire. Yes, I remembered to loadthe thing and to both release and pullthe trigger! As you know, in the heat ofcompetition you don’t take time to fig-ure out much. Just get the thing run-ning! So I apply the Benelli equivalentof “tap rack bang.”

Needless to say, I didn’t make thecut on that run.

Going into run three I thought: “Iam not out of this yet; I just need twomore good runs.” This same scenarioplayed out again on my third andfourth runs. Since I was out of the run-ning, I took a little time to see what washappening on the fourth run. It lookedlike the hammer was following the boltdown on a live round. Must be some-thing wrong with the fire control com-ponents, I thought, so I’ll just borrowanother M1 Super 90 from my buddyJim Wall. Jim warns me not to ”putany stupid in his gun” and with that Iplunk down my re-entry fee for an-other chance at Jerry and Bill. I amready now; I have in my hands a vet-eran shotgun that has seen the rangesof Gunsite and top finishes at SOF. Ifany gun can make the difference, I nowposses it. Victory is mine (or at least Iwill make the cut). Not so fast, pow-derhead! Again the hammer followsthe bolt down on a live round. SorryJim, I guess I did “put some stupid”into your gun.

Back home, I was determined tofind out why. Can I be the cause ofTHIS malfunction? Other types ofmalfunctions, sure, but THIS one?With the help of a half a dozen M1 Su-per 90 owners and hundreds of roundsof shot shells I set to work finding out.Could it be the cyclic rate? Benelli’strick shooter had set a record shootingmore hand-thrown clays than anyoneelse, so their gun had to be fast, right?

Over a year’s time, using any M1S90 that I could borrow (usually atmatches), I learned that the Benelli wasindeed faster than the 1100, but that Icould out-run the Benelli’s cyclic rate

on demand.

Using the same videographic tech-niques that we applied to the 1100, wefound the limit for the Benelli: 13 hun-dredths of a second. That’s it. Anyfaster, and the hammer follows thebolt. Some of the testing I have onvideo tape documents 11 of the afore-mentioned hammer follows in 50rounds fired. For all that fanfare, “theworld’s fastest shotgun” is one lousyhundredth faster than the Remington1100.

If the 13/14 hundredths cyclic rateis virtually the same for both Benelliand Remington, why the difference inthe malfunction? Simple, the Benellidisconnect resets before the bolt isclosed. The Remington does not. Atspeeds below .13 second, the hammerfollows the bolt down without firingon the Benelli. The Remington justmakes you pull the trigger again whenthe disconnect resets.

(Editor’s note: I asked Jim Wallabout his experiences with the Benelli.His ideas reflect Kelley’s, but he adds awarning about cocking handles. “I’vegot timers that will show the minimumcyclic rate as high as .14, especially ifyou have one of those big cocking han-dles on. I had one of those, and that’sabout the time I started having troublewith the cyclic rate. . . Now I’m back tousing the little pin that Benelli sup-plies.”)

The initial reaction of many shoot-ers to this information is, “Who cares?Who really goes that fast?” or “Wherewould I use that speed?” Practicalshooters (and some tactical shooters)are different. This is why I penned my“on the range” experiences. If youKNEW that your pistol stopped work-ing at .13 seconds and your ability ex-ceeded that, you would be at the gun-smith getting it fixed. Why should youexpect less from your shotgun? If youworked on a SWAT team, and theBenelli was your main shotgun, would-n’t knowing that you were carrying agun guaranteed to fail at under .13 sec-ond splits give you pause?

So now what? How do I fix the

“world’s fastest cycling shotgun?” Af-ter much thought, I chose not to. If Iwere to try, I would start with weightreduction in the reciprocating parts.Springs work in both directions, sochanges there don’t really help (if astrong spring makes the action closefaster, it also makes it open slower). Acompany called SRM makes an im-proved cycling kit that may be worth atry.

So what now? Do I settle for less?How about Browning? What do theyhave to offer?

Browning Auto 5Way back when, everybody had a

Browning Auto 5 for their waterfowlgun. Does it meet the criteria for ourgames? Let’s see: Reliability is job one.This gun is VERY reliable. Much of itsreputation came from waterfowl hunt-ing. Stories of freezing cold wet gunsbeing dropped in the muck still comingup shooting are told to this day. Doesit possess the attributes of low recoil,good ergonomics, ease of maintenance

39November/December 2001 • FRONT SIGHT

Photo by Robin Taylor

The Benelli M1 Super 90 shoots andloads like a dream for practical 3-gunnerslike Mark Anglin (above). However, the Su-per 90 will not shoot faster than .13 sec-ond splits. If the shooter tries to shootfaster, the hammer follows the bolt.

SPEED SHOTGUN continued on page 42.

FRONT SIGHT • November/December 200142

and reasonable affordability? Howabout after-market accessories? TheAuto 5 scores three out of six. It is re-liable, ergonomics are okay, and main-tenance? What maintenance? Oil andshoot. Nothing breaks; nearly everypart is cut from cast, billet or forgedsteel. Like the Benelli, it is recoil oper-ated (although the Auto 5 is a long re-coil action unlike the Benelli) and doesnot mitigate recoil as well as a gas-op-erated gun. With the discontinuance ofthe Auto 5, prices have gone way up,and accessories are next to non-exis-tent. Nada, zip. Even Choate is discon-tinuing their magazine extension tubefor the Auto 5. Why even talk about it?Because even with the obstacles in-

volved, Auto-5’s are faster than and atLEAST as reliable as the Benelli – par-ticularly at top speed.

The Auto 5 positively re-sets thefirst half of the trigger return stroke us-ing a pair of opposing hooks – one onthe hammer, one on the trigger. Insteadof waiting for the fairly passive actionof a re-set spring, that hook on thehammer claws the trigger ahead as thehammer re-sets, slapping your fingerout of the way if you’re too slow lettinggo. You still need to let go of the trig-ger for it to fully re-set, but the first halfof the process is done mechanically.(Think of it like using solid lifters in-stead of spring lifters on a car engine.)

Until I ran across the next shotgunon my list, the Browning Auto 5proved itself to be faster than the“world’s fastest cycling shotgun,” leav-ing the Benelli buried in its emptyhulls.

The New BrowningsOkay, drum roll please. Will the

real world’s fastest cycling shotgunplease stand up? What? We have twoguns standing? How can this be? Wecan thank the people at Winchesterand Browning for this situation. Theyhave unwittingly given us a choice be-tween two “world’s fastest cyclingshotguns.” The Browning Gold andthe Winchester Super X2 are both builton the same basic platform, and theseguns haul!

Okay, they go fast, WAY FAST. Dothey meet the criteria we have estab-lished? Low recoil? Oh yeah! They’regas operated. Good ergonomics? Yes,they feel quick in the hands. Ease ofmaintenance? So far so good. I have nolong-term data, but the gas system wasdesigned with this very thing in mind.As far as gas guns go, these are as sim-ple as youcouldhope for,at least interms ofnumberof parts.This goesfor the

fire control system too. Reasonable af-fordability? Costs no more than aBenelli. Aftermarket parts?3gungear.com will make you a slickside saddle for them. Mag extensionsare a little harder to come by. Checkthe websites of Briley.com or Defen-siveedge.net.

Did I mention RELIABILITY??? Inaddition to my own limited testing, re-ports from Bennie Cooley indicate thatthis platform IS reliable. Cooley haswon one 3-Gun nationals with it, plusa couple of wins at the North Carolinatactical 3 gun, and the MGM 3 gun.

Browning Gold The Browning Gold is the only

“new” self-loader available with speedloading. Here is what that means asdescribed in Browning literature —“with the action open, any load in-serted into the magazine is sent directlyto the chamber, ready to be fired.”

Like some kind of mechanicalmagic trick, the moment you let go ofthe first round stuffed into the maga-zine tube, the Browning Gold feeds itall the way to the chamber. No messingaround loading the chamber, pushing abutton, and then flipping the gun toload the mag tube – just load the mag-azine tube and the gun loads itself! Thisfeature was originally designed for theBrowning “Double Automatic” andwas quickly applied to the Auto 5; ithas been on nearly all Browning self-loaders since.

Winchester Super X2Unbeknownst to many, Browning

and Winchester are owned by the sameholding company (Giat of France). Asa result, the two firms are sharing a lotof information with each other andwith Giat-owned FN.

Photo by Robin Taylor.

Accessories for the Auto-5 aren’teasy to find. Kelly Beale made this double-decker side-saddle using an old scopemount and a pair of side-saddle racks fromother guns. Although not popular among 3-gunners, the Auto-5 has advantages overmany other shotguns.

Speed Demon. The Browning Gold and the Winchester SX2 (above) arequickly building a reputation for speed and reliability. Accessories are still aproblem, however.

SPEED SHOTGUN continued from page 39.

43November/December 2001 • FRONT SIGHT

Winchester’s Super X2 is essentially the same gun as theBrowning Gold, only with a different set of features. TheWinchester does not have the speed-loading feature of theBrowning, otherwise the price point would be substantiallyhigher.

What the Winchester does offer is a ready-to-rock “Prac-tical” configuration! Somebody at Winchester must be a 3gunner, as this gun is built with us in mind. Sporting a 22”barrel for good handling (complete with Invector chokes)and a factory-installed magazine extension bringing capacityto 8 and 1, this gun is good to go. Standard features also in-clude a synthetic stock and cantilever scope mount. Notleaving the Limited division gunners out, Winchester has fit-ted an excellent set of rifle sights. The rear one folds downand is dovetailed to the scope mount. The front sight is dove-tailed into a nice-looking serrated ramp and has the verypopular fiber optic tube or “light pipe” nestled inside. Theonly thing I would add is a side saddle, and again,3gungear.com can handle that for you.

I got a chance to spend a little time (very little) with theWinchester Super X2 and found what may pull me away

from my beloved Auto 5. After a few speed drills onthree pepper poppers, I was already well pleased withthis self-loader’s performance. Using 00 Buck loads(does this thing smooth out recoil or what?) I ran athree-popper course with each popper a yard apartand 12 yards down range. From the port arms posi-tion I was able to “draw” and knock down all threein just under one second. Considering a reaction andfirst engagement time of .68, split times between thenext two poppers were 12 and 13 hundredths re-spectively. This is as fast as my Auto 5! At this speed,the Benelli’s hammer follows the bolt!

Idaho state police officer David Neth was kindenough to let me perform this test with his personalWinchester SX2 Practical. He also demonstrated thisshotgun’s true capability by pulling off some 11 hun-dredths splits along with a handful of 12’s. To topthat, he beat my personal record for the fastest fiveshots. This is a little thing I have been doing since thespeed bug hit me. With the timer running you letloose of five rounds as fast as you can, counting thefirst shot as zero and totaling the remaining four splitintervals. My best to date has been 56 hundredths.David amazed the small gathering at a 3 gun match inWinchester, Idaho by firing those five shots in 51hundredths! The splits were three .13’s and one .12.This gun is full auto fast! By the way, this was withFederal 00 buck. No, not the low recoil stuff, this wasFederal MAX 2 3/4 Classic.

So there you have it, a quick overview of a short listof practical self-loading shotguns. All will do the jobnicely. Some may fit your needs better than others.Each has its high points and all have their problems.As much as I thought I would not draw any conclu-

sions for you I would like to leave you with this;

My quest forspeed grew out of a de-sire for reliability. Whilespeed is not everything,you can have that and areliable shotgun to boot.No matter what gun youuse, our game will un-cover its weaknesses andshine its attributes. Soget out there and seehow fast you can go. Go3 gunning!

Long recoil Auto-5’s shoot faster than you think. Pat Kel-ley’s race-5 appears barrel-forward (above) and barrel-back(in recoil, below). Note the position of the muzzle relative tothe end of the mag tube.

Photo by Pat Kelley

Photo by Pat Kelley

Photo courtesy of Browning/Winchester.

Warp Speed popper-blasting puts aheavy toll on autoloading shotguns.Here Jim Wall lays into a set of threewith the new Winchester SX2.