jamesb
Member
After the post on my last thread asking about gauge reducers here is the follow-up. Well I ordered a pair of the Chamber Mates in 16 to 28 gauge for the doublegun shop. I received them on Friday and had them on the wobble trap range on Saturday. The set came with some grease, bag of extra o-rings, removal tool and hard plastic case. I used them in a Zasatava 16 gauge SxS with extractors. The inserts were made solid and the extractor slide nicely on the insert. I dropped one on accident and the extractor popped of but it snapped back into place pretty easily. They fit snug into guns chambers and moved well with the guns own extractors. Now the fun part, I ran one box of Rio and 2 boxes of Winchester AA's through it. The manufacture recommends AA's or STS's but I thought I would try the cheaper Rio's. I had several fail to extracts where the guns extractor pushed the whole insert out, on most I closed the action and re-opened it and it worked like it was supposed to. Others I had to push the insert down with my finger and on a few I had to use the base of another fired hull. One hull stuck bad enough I had to remove the insert, which broke the o-ring and pop out the hull with the removal tool. I didn't have another o-ring so I fired the next station without the o-ring so I had to manually extract the hulls from that barrel. I replaced the o-ring between rounds and switched to AA's for the next 2 rounds and had no fail to extracts. So I guess the manufactures knew what they were talking about, who would have guessed. 
I scored the same score that I normally do with the gun shooting 16 gauge shells, actually shooting better on one round, would have been a 25 if I wasn't goofing off trying to close the gun and mount after I said pull. With both types of shells it looked like I was shooting black powder when I removed the spent hulls and the barrels had lots of unburned powder and fouling. Cleanup took a bit longer than normal. I think I used too much of the grease which got all into the guns extractors and action. Also the firing pins on my SxS drug across the primer cup on both types of shells so I do not think the inserts fit perfectly flush. Upon removal of the inserts for cleaning the o-rings snapped and looked like brittle dried rubber bits so its good they send a bag full but I do envision needing to buy some more is a few years. A bit of elbow grease was needed to return the inserts back to there shiny state.
Overall I am very pleased with them, when using the ammunition the manufacture recommends I had no problems. While they are not cheap, they are cheaper than buying a new .28 ga SxS and allows me to shoot the same gun that already fits me without modifying the feel or swing. I would recommend them. I would still be a little weary of using them in a gun with hammer ejectors like a citori or cynergy, I can see them going flying behind you if you had a hull stick but if you cover the action with your hand like most people do to catch the spent hulls I think they would be fine.
I scored the same score that I normally do with the gun shooting 16 gauge shells, actually shooting better on one round, would have been a 25 if I wasn't goofing off trying to close the gun and mount after I said pull. With both types of shells it looked like I was shooting black powder when I removed the spent hulls and the barrels had lots of unburned powder and fouling. Cleanup took a bit longer than normal. I think I used too much of the grease which got all into the guns extractors and action. Also the firing pins on my SxS drug across the primer cup on both types of shells so I do not think the inserts fit perfectly flush. Upon removal of the inserts for cleaning the o-rings snapped and looked like brittle dried rubber bits so its good they send a bag full but I do envision needing to buy some more is a few years. A bit of elbow grease was needed to return the inserts back to there shiny state. Overall I am very pleased with them, when using the ammunition the manufacture recommends I had no problems. While they are not cheap, they are cheaper than buying a new .28 ga SxS and allows me to shoot the same gun that already fits me without modifying the feel or swing. I would recommend them. I would still be a little weary of using them in a gun with hammer ejectors like a citori or cynergy, I can see them going flying behind you if you had a hull stick but if you cover the action with your hand like most people do to catch the spent hulls I think they would be fine.
