H&R 20ga or 12ga?

[eastsunshine]

i want to get a H&R pardner for hunting turkey, geese, etc. i know the differences in recoil and such. But i want to know if a 20 gauge will do about as good as a 12 gauge or not.

Help! please?!?

 

[Badger Arms]

I would say that if you intend to shoot big birds, there is ABSOLUTELY no advantage to the 20ga. The 12ga will do everything the 20ga will do, but the reverse is not true.

 

[edelbrock]

12ga for sure. You can get lighter loads for the 12 and it will recoil about like a 20. You can also get the magnum loads for turkey.

 

[MCgunner]

Neither, get a 10 gauge, much heavier, felt recoil about with the 12 gauge version only a lot more umph with steel T shot on geese. It'll reach out there and make that 12 gauge look silly. I'm quite impressed with mine, got it last season. Mine is the 24" 10 gauge turkey gun. I bought the modified choke for it for steel shot on geese. It comes with an extra full turkey choke. Got it for just under 200 bucks. It MSRPs for 260. It ain't a dove, teal, quail gun. If you wanna hunt those, go with the 12 and suffer the inferiority on the big birds, especially with steel shot. But, if your interest is geese and turkey, it's a specialist and hard to beat. If you get a 12, just pony up the big bucks for 3" BB hevi shot when you go goose hunting. Shooting the 10 with steel Ts is just as effective and a lot cheaper on ammo.

 

[vicdotcom]

I love the 20 for many things. But if it is geese and turkey you are after, the only advantage I can think of that the 20 gauge has is portability. If you are walking a lot, a 20 is lighter and easier to hike with. Might not matter at first, but after a few miles you really start to feel a difference.

But that is the only advantage I can think of right now.

That being said, I hunt turkey with a 20 gauge single shot just for that reason. Most of my friends use 12 ga. though. I do notice that they do adjust their shotguns a lot after a few hours of hiking though hehehe. Only a few turkey loads for the 20 that work well. 12ga has many more options.

 

[earlthegoat2]

I use a 20 gauge as my go to gun for geese and turkey.

Now I will say that in general a 12 gauge is probably the better choice. But with the amount of shooting and patterning I have done with my 20s I am fully confident in their abilities as long as they are used within those abilities.

If you are all about maximizing your range and power and ability to shoot the birds with minimal practice then you better go with the 12.

 

[TAB]

it really depends where and how you hunt.

for close shots the 20 is fine, the longer shots, the extra shot in the 12 ga will really help "fill" the holes in the pattern.

 

[Deltaboy1984]

Get a 12

 

[MCgunner]

Outside of 35 yards, the 12 is pretty weak with BB steel. It'll shoot 60 yards if it patterns fine with 3" BB hevi shot and down geese. There are days in the grain fields when those geese will just hang up there at 50 yards and smile at ya. That's when I want my 10. A 20, well, might as well go home. You get a goose inside 30 yards and you can down him with steel 4s from a 20, but steel shot runs out of juice rather quickly and the smaller it is, the faster it runs out of juice.

I've hunted geese all my life and I just got sick of watching those geese at 50 yards and knowing I shouldn't even waste a shot at 'em. Might get lucky and break a wing, most you can hope for. When hevi shot got half way affordable, was getting Federal tungsten/Iron for 13 bucks a box of 10, I started using that and it was impressive. However, tungsten got out of sight for a while, was running 35 bucks a box of 10 for a while. I can get a box of 10 gauge steel Ts, just as effective as that 3" BB hevi shot in 12s, for a dollar a round. I now have a MEC reloader, just need to get me some shot ordered and I can start working on reloads. I figure I can reload 'em for around 10 dollars a box of 25.

Even when I could use lead shot back in the mid 60s, I didn't use the 20 for geese. My uncle felt sorry for me and gave me an old 16 gauge single shot, 30" full choke. Got me some 2s for it and that was my goose gun for a while. My buddy had a Marlin goose gun, 3" 12, for geese, but I did okay with the 16. But, lead is no longer legal on waterfowl, steel shot is a fact of life, and the 20 just ain't got it, sorry, but facts is facts.

My old 870 20 gauge was a 2 3/4" gun, though. There weren't much in the way of 3" 20 back in the day. Now days, with 3" 20, you have more juice, about like a 2 3/4" 12. However, the shot string is long and the 3" 20 won't generally perform as well as a 2 3/4" 12, let alone a 3" 12.

I'll tell ya this, too, that 10 gauge is about the most awesome patterning shotgun I've ever fired at a pattern board. I get 90%-95% patterns consistently at 40 yards on a 30" pattern board with steel T shot. That's pretty amazing and deadly on geese.

Just my experience. I've been hunting waterfowl for a long, long time. I've only ever hunted turkey once, though, and use a 12 gauge 3" to take a tom. It was fun, just ain't got land to do it on. I'll hunt dove, teal, upland game with my little 20 which I like a lot, I hunt ducks mostly with one or the other of my 12 gauges, and now, when it comes time for geese or cranes, I have the 10.

 

[eastsunshine]

i find it hard to understand that a 20 cant take geese, i imobilized and killed geese with a .17hmr bolt action last year. had to finish a few of with a shovel but it got the job done.

 

[MCgunner]

Apples and oranges. Hand grenades will take geese, too.

The 20 CAN take a goose reliably up close if they're inside 30 yards. But, if it's one of those blue bird days and they ain't comin' in closer than 50, might as well go home. Steel shot rules mean you can't use big lead and a 20 I'm unsure if you can even get 20 gauge 3" in BB steel, probably, would have to look for it. Maybe number 2 steel, it would work to 30 yards. But steel shot loses its umph fast past 35 yards even in BB steel from a 3" 12 which would pattern a lot better than 20 gauge. 20 gauge doesn't hold a lot of big shot and the patterns will be mighty thin.

There's more to goose hunting than backing off 30 yards from a tethered goose and shooting it. And, yeah, a rifle, even a .22 short, will take a goose down, it's basically a lead bullet the diameter of a Number 3 buckshot and packing a LOT more energy than a steel BB and maintaining good energy to 100 yards. Shotguns are not rifles and wing shooting is not rifle shooting.

You do enough goose hunting with a 20, you'll wanna move up, trust me. If 8 gauge was legal and I could get one with ammo, I'd be using an 8 gauge. I wouldn't need it on a good day when they're decoying well, but it'd sure be handy at those longer range shots with Ts. Even the ten gauge's pattern runs thin past 60 yards, but really, that's all I ask. If I can't get 'em down to 50 yards are so, that morning just ain't meant to be. Now, if I'm pass shooting like I did when I was a kid, longer range is the rule, but over deeks, generally, you can get 'em in under 60 yards even on a blue bird day if they're at all interested, even in late season. But, they'll be very wary to come in much closer on many mornings.

You get on out there and shoot some snows with the 20 and get back to me. And, btw, shooting geese with a rifle is illegal here, and I'm thinkin' that's a federal law. If I saw anyone doing that, I'd call the operation game thief 800 number.

 

[MCgunner]

If all you have is a 20, you're going to HAVE to find some hevi shot for it in number 2 if you want any sort of performance with it. In a few hunts, you will have burned up more money in ammo than I spent on my 10 gauge. Think about it. That's why I got the 10 in the first place and, besides, I like it.

 

[MCgunner]

Here's another idea. Sit in the restaurant in Katy, Texas every morning during the goose season when Larry Gore's Eagle Lake, Katy Prairie Outfitters is assigning guides to hunter groups and you take a pole of gauges. I don't know if you'll find one person using the 20 all season. You will find LOT'S of 12s and quite a few 10s, but 20s will be few, if any. Many of those 12s will be 3.5" magnum chambered, too. Serious goose hunters use serious shotgun gauges. There is a reason for that.

 

[chas08]

I use a 20 gauge as my go to gun for geese and turkey.

What size shot and at what ranges are you commonly taking these geese with your 20 ga? I personally wouldn't want anything smaller than a 3 inch 12 ga. for geese. I prefer a 10ga. because of the size of the shot diameter typically used here, It puts a better pellet count in the pattern. I've never seen anything larger than #2 steel for a 20, which would be woefully inadequate around these parts. I have no comment on turkey as I prefer to fish in the spring rather than hunt. But I believe a tight pattern of #6 on a turkeys head would do the job from either gauge.

 

[eastsunshine]

MCgunner
(There's more to goose hunting than backing off 30 yards from a tethered goose and shooting it.)


i forgot the goose .17 hmr thing was a "geese sh*t control effort" for my great grandpa in West Virginia, he handed me and my brother in law the only guns we had under a 8mm, (savage .17 hmr, and a 10/22) a shovel, and a golf cart and said, and i quote "dont stop shootin till they aint movin no more" we rode around the property which is now nothing more than ponds and a shale pit, and will killed the F**K out of those damn geese.

i wasnt saying i would hunt with a 17, oops, sorry for confusion