Hi all, I wanted to shoot 2 3/4" #6 birdshot through my magnum twelve with a 32" smoothbore barrel, but it wouldn't cycle very well even with the friction ring setup for light loads described in the manual. The spring is just too beefy and the 32" barrel too heavy (I think?) for the gun to run properly. I decided to experiment with the spring from my light twelve, ending up with the setup shown in the pic below.
I used the friction ring from the light twelve on the front end and lubed it a bit. With this setup there's a relatively (to the factory setups) small amount of compression on the spring, and I can only guess that this is much gentler on the spring when it's being stored. The length of the spring is such that, with this particular friction ring setup, it only begins to compress when you're about 1/8" from having the barrel fully inserted. This makes it very easy to put the gun back together because you no longer have to push the spring down with the wooden front grip; in fact, only the last two or three threads create any additional compression on the recoil spring.
The action is very light now (compared to the stock magnum spring), and it cleanly cycles #6 birdshot as fast as I can pull the trigger. The gun really feels good with this setup running these shells - recoil is minimal and it just feels confident and beefy in a way the light 12 doesn't. I wish the barrel were a few inches shorter, but this works much better than I expected it to. I'm very, very pleased.
I know there's not a whole lot of point to running birdshot in this gun, especially given that I have a light 12, but I like the ability to run everything from 2 3/4" light loads up to 3" sabot slugs in an autoloader without even using a hand tool. Very cool if you ask me!
I used the friction ring from the light twelve on the front end and lubed it a bit. With this setup there's a relatively (to the factory setups) small amount of compression on the spring, and I can only guess that this is much gentler on the spring when it's being stored. The length of the spring is such that, with this particular friction ring setup, it only begins to compress when you're about 1/8" from having the barrel fully inserted. This makes it very easy to put the gun back together because you no longer have to push the spring down with the wooden front grip; in fact, only the last two or three threads create any additional compression on the recoil spring.
The action is very light now (compared to the stock magnum spring), and it cleanly cycles #6 birdshot as fast as I can pull the trigger. The gun really feels good with this setup running these shells - recoil is minimal and it just feels confident and beefy in a way the light 12 doesn't. I wish the barrel were a few inches shorter, but this works much better than I expected it to. I'm very, very pleased.
I know there's not a whole lot of point to running birdshot in this gun, especially given that I have a light 12, but I like the ability to run everything from 2 3/4" light loads up to 3" sabot slugs in an autoloader without even using a hand tool. Very cool if you ask me!
