I took Louis Awerbuck's Stage-1 shotgun course. I showed up with this uber decked out 870 and was using a sig-tac vest for holding my shells. My shotgun was equiped with a three round extension along with an elaborate dual picatinnied clamp. After the first day, I went back to the hotel room and thought things though. My vest was really screwing me up on what pocket my shells were located in and how to get into that pocket without looking. Another thing was that I was the one of two shooters that were running three round extension. It was taking me a long time to get my gun topped off and, I was holding everybody up. That night I took off the extension and ran a standard capacity 870 with a 20 inch barrel with a standard carry sling and, I also dumped the vest and went to a dump pouch for bird shot and used my jean pockets for buck and slugs. Now, I could really concentrate on training instead of fumbeling with reloading. My reloading timed sped up considerably. On the third day the other guy with the three round extension on his 870 also took it off and went to a standard capacity setup. When it was all said and done, There were four of us out of eleven shooters that ran standard capacity mag tubes and we did just fine. The gun was lighter and handled better. The felt recoil was a little stiffer but the R3 recoil pad saved my bacon. My insight is this, spend less money on equipment and more on training. What you think you needed may only screw you up. I was not the best shooter of the class nor was I the worst. We all had our strengths and weeknesses and there were times when we were all like *** looking at our guns in utter confusion. Here is a pic of the gun as it was the last two days of the class. The gun was also fitted with XS sights.
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