Picking a 20 ga Turkey Gun

[reynolds243]

Overpriced and underperform is in the eyes of the shooter I'd say.  IMO what gets lost in this gun is you are judging it based on a very specific turkey load with a known issue of being troublesome to pattern. Not saying the M2 20 is not the issue but if you had the variety of shell options the 12 has this prob is a non issue. Furthermore I doubt benelli build the gun with specially maximizing tight turkey patterns, obviously they built it as an all around gun that will work for all hunting situations which it fact it will.  Take an 835 for an example. Its sole purpose is for magnum shells on ducks and turkeys. They don't market for much else then that so that's what it does really well.  Try to make it a dove gun and you will find complains.

I'm not defending benelli because others have found ways to produce good results in all areas easier but to me those guns lack other things I actually like on the M2.


Joshua 24:15
"But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."


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[alloutdoors]

So you're calling the M2 inconsistent because it doesn't work with whatever random choke you want to put it in it? Yes, the M2 has a specific barrel design and it performs better with certain chokes than others... so what? Pretty much every M2 I've heard of is a good to great performer with either of the chokes I mentioned above, that is consistency. Why should I care about the chokes it doesn't shoot well with when I have chokes available that it shoots fantastic with? I'm also failing to see how it is the guns fault that a particular choke manufactured by a 3rd party doesn't perform well in it. I didn't buy my M2 to shoot it with a different choke for each day of the week. Do you criticize a Corvette because it should only be run on premium gas and claim that a Ford Focus is a superior car because you can fill it with whatever octane you feel like?

Put another way, lets say you have 100 identical shotguns from some other brand and a pile of 25 chokes, you can probably grab any choke out of that pile and find at least a shotgun or two that will perform well with it. Maybe it's five guns that like choke one, one that likes choke two, four that like choke three, etc., etc. It also means that when you walk into a store and buy one of those 100 guns you don't know which of the 25 chokes is going to be your best performer. On the other hand, if you take 100 M2's and 98 of them perform well with the same two or three chokes then which gun is more consistent? Like I said above, the recipe for the M2 is well established, if you decide to substitute a cup of baking soda where you were supposed to use a cup of flour and your bread ends up tasting like garbage that's on you.

[sawtooth]

So you're calling the M2 inconsistent because it doesn't work with whatever random choke you want to put it in it? Yes, the M2 has a specific barrel design and it performs better with certain chokes than others... so what? Pretty much every M2 I've heard of is a good to great performer with either of the chokes I mentioned above, that is consistency. Why should I care about the chokes it doesn't shoot well with when I have chokes available that it shoots fantastic with? I'm also failing to see how it is the guns fault that a particular choke manufactured by a 3rd party doesn't perform well in it. I didn't buy my M2 to shoot it with a different choke for each day of the week. Do you criticize a Corvette because it should only be run on premium gas and claim that a Ford Focus is a superior car because you can fill it with whatever octane you feel like?

Put another way, lets say you have 100 identical shotguns from some other brand and a pile of 25 chokes, you can probably grab any choke out of that pile and find at least a shotgun or two that will perform well with it. Maybe it's five guns that like choke one, one that likes choke two, four that like choke three, etc., etc. It also means that when you walk into a store and buy one of those 100 guns you don't know which of the 25 chokes is going to be your best performer. On the other hand, if you take 100 M2's and 98 of them perform well with the same two or three chokes then which gun is more consistent? Like I said above, the recipe for the M2 is well established, if you decide to substitute a cup of baking soda where you were supposed to use a cup of flour and your bread ends up tasting like garbage that's on you.

Agreed!  Based on this I just ordered the recommended Sumtoy to try out.  As a back up I'll still have the Browning Silver 20 and the new Franchi that arrives Monday.  Will be fun doing some testing anyways.  Thanks for all the info you guys!   

[Lonster]

My Franchi Affinity 20 gauge. I really like this gun.

Lonster

[wvmntnhick]

that thing looks sweet.

[WyoHunter]

I like my Beretta 391 but if I had to replace it I'd go with a Franchi Affinity as my first choice and Winchester SX3 as my second choice.

[sawtooth]

It's hard to give advice when you haven't told us what choke and load combos you've tried, what kind of numbers you've gotten, and what kind of numbers you are looking for. The recipe for an M2 20ga is pretty well established, M2 + Sumtoy 562-5 or Indian Creek 555 + 3" Fed HW 7's = 150-170+ at 40yds and very dead turkeys. There are other chokes that will work but I don't recall seeing very many cases where the Sumtoy or IC weren't shooters in an M2.

After reviewing this forums and others its very obvious these guns just don't group well in any of the calibers.

I don't know how you possibly could have reached that conclusion if you've actually read these forums.

Well guys its time for me to set aside my pride and officially apologize.  I guess I was cutting short the potential of the M2 as per your post because it shot well with the Sumtoy 562-5.  After using 5 or 6 different turkey chokes and near 50-70 test fire shots I finally found a winner.  This first shot (clean barrel) was the worst at about 123 hits at 40 yards but the next two were in the 140-150 range which is perfect.  The load was the Federal Heavy Weights #7 with 1.5oz of shot.  Not to tight but just about right for me.  The rest of the pattern was a fairly defined circle which is what I'm after also.  Not perfect but pretty darn good.  So anyway my apologies as this gun will shoot but as another one posted in this thread they are very finicky for sure.  By the way, I also broke in my new Franchi Affinity 20g and it shoots great as well.  I like the overall gun a bit less but I think it actually shoots a little better than the Benelli.  Not much just a little and seems to be alot less finicky with the type loads you use as well.  The one thing I didn't like is that its feels like the distance from your right hand grip to reach the trigger is too far.  I'm 6'3 with a little larger hands and the reach for the trigger seems to far and a bit awkward to me.  Not bad just not nearly as good as the M2.  Overall, the feel of the M2 is better and I like the rear of the forearm where you put your palm while sitting and holding the gun while turkey hunting.  The overall quality of the gun is a bit better also.  But its not a huge difference and if money is a issue don't hesitate on the Franchi Affinity.  Other than the long trigger finger reach this gun is a excellent turkey killer.  I'm getting ready to post all the target pictures for these guns and a Mossberg Bantam 500 on the 20gauge pattern picture forum.

[alloutdoors]

Glad you got your M2 shooting. You may notice your numbers creeping up as you shoot the choke more. I ran a box of high brass loads through mine to condition the choke when I first got it before patterning my turkey loads. I also get similar numbers to yours through a clean barrel. For the best results I run a boresnake through my barrel two or three times between shots, my gun does a bit better after the boresnake than just shooting through a dirty barrel.