womble wrote:Hopefully bladeracer will give you a better explanation as my experience is also limited and distant memory.
But a pump action is an entirely manual operation, no use of recoil gasses.
In 12 gauge I went from a side by side hammer gun to a mossberg 500 pump. Which is a pretty cheap gun. Synthetic stock, mass produced junk really. Somewhat better to shoot, because nothing is more brutal than the old side by side.
But then I swapped the mossberg for a Bennelli semi auto, expensive well balanced nicely put together with a wood stock. and that was a dramatic difference in recoil.
The only other semi auto I used infrequently was a franchi spas which was still a nice piece of kit but not a patch on the Bennell
I guess recoil is relative depending how much you need/want to shoot the gun. In 12 gauge most stuff available for cat a/b is not much fun if you want to shoot all day
Unless it’s a nice u/o trap gun or something.
I’ve seen shotguns nowadays with muzzle brakes and I saw one with ported barrels, things that would vent some gas and make them a bit more pleasant.
Plastic stocks I would avoid in 12 gauge and I think you need something that’s nicely weighted, balanced.
I guess you get what you pay for like anything else. Some of the better straight pulls seem well reviewed recoil wise.
And of course recoil is relative to the individual. The only shotgun I take anywhere nowadays is a 410. Probably my favourite gun to shoot actually.
But that’s simplistic, there’s more to the story. Bladeracer ?
I think you've pretty well covered it
I have only occasionally used a semi-auto shotgun, and as with most firearms, semi-auto is the pinnacle of development for obvious reasons, despite what anti-gun morons and Fudds insist. Less recoil, maintain sight picture, fast follow-up shots with no change in ergonomics. Manufacturers don't invest billions of dollars into improving firearms to make them worse (although some seem to do just that). They do have a downside in versatility as the action is designed to function within a specific window of pressure and gas volume.
I had busted some clays as a kid in Cadets, but my first shotgun was the Bentley Model 30 20", 8-shot pump gun when I was seventeen. I also had a single-barrel .410 which could deal a decent boot with slugs. Now I have the Stoeger Condor 30" over-under and the Dickinson 28" T1000 straight-pull. The Dickinson has a plastic butt stock that would carry a lot of lead shot if I decide to increase its inertia - rough guess is that it might hold at least 2kg of lead. I want to get the 20" barrel for the T1000 as well.