[viking499]

20 guage O/U. Which one would you rather have?

[MCgunner]

Currently, looks aside, Spartan. It works and it doesn't have the firing pin breakage rep. Tough guns, just fugly.

[New_geezer]

I have an 20 ga IZH-27 Baikal, basically a Spartan 310 made before Remington took over the import duties. It, along with my Savage Fox-B, also in 20 ga, are my favorite guns

While I've seen many ugly Baikals on the shelves, mine was actually quite pretty from the gitgo. I also looked at quite a few before buying because the cast on Baikal stocks favor righties and I shoot left-handed. My stock was very close to neutral.

The major rub against Baikals or Spartans is their looks, but their internals are strong and well made. I have many thousand rounds thru mine and have never had a mechanical problem. At www.shotgunworld.com there is an "I Love Baikal/Spartan" forum and there you can find many postings of owners who took their stocks off and refinished them to create some handsome looking guns. These are considered low-cost guns and every low-cost gun is going to have some compromises in manufacture. The aesthetics may be marginal but the internals are strong and durable. To my mind that's the preferred way to go. If you have more time than money and don't mind giving your gun some TLC you can have a really decent tool.

I won't oversell the Baikal, many people also find them heavy and not the best handling. But the weight helps recoil and I'm a pretty big guy so I've never had the problem. The Turkish guns, including MSR, have yet to impress me. Many look nice but I've seen many that just look cheap and I still see too many stories about inconsistent quality. That may not always be true but if money's tight I wouldn't want to fund some company's learning curve.

However if you're near an Academy Sports I would check out the Turkish made Yildiz. Owners seem to give it pretty good marks across the board. There are no Academys where I live so I've yet to handle one myself but I see enough positive comments to give them a look if I could.

[MCgunner]

Pretty is as pretty does. :D

http://imageigloo.com/images/6966PICT0097.JPG

http://imageigloo.com/images/1776PICT0185.JPG