Went down to visit the folks in San Antonio this past weekend, and decided to bring my 870 and a few hundred rounds of 12ga down with me, on the chance that I could get my dad to drag out his 1200 and shoot some clay. Turns out the whole family was game for it!
I wanted to go check out the NCSA down there, but they were closed (at least to the public) that day, so we ended up down on Nacogdoches off of 1604 at an outdoor range at about 4pm on a really NASTY day (forecast was about 102F w/87% humidity), with my mom, dad, brother, an 870 and a 1200. Nothing fancy here, just throw some clay (manual throwing, no machines), and shoot it. Started off with a nice warmup of the 870, missing just about everything that was thrown. Got into the swing of things and starting making lots of clay dust explosions. We traded guns around quite a bit, and I have to say, the 1200 feels really nice in the hands, and the kick seemed a little less than the 870. The trigger was also nice, though it was unclear if it was a custom job (my dad has had it for a long time and couldn't remember, and I'm not sure of the date of manufacture since I keep forgetting to write down the SN). Unfortunately, it was also somewhat difficult to load (I didn't like the way the shells locked into the loading port, and the lack of a spring (by design, or missing part?) meant that you had to hold each round in while you hoped the guide would fall back into place to hold it in), and ejecting shells ended up with about 75% of the hulls getting stuck in the ejector. It also did NOT handle the heat well. My 870 was rock-solid, as I've come to expect, and after the 1200 had become a little too hot than was comfortable, the 870 kept going and going and going, though even it succumbed to the continued firing and the ambient heat.
This is in no way a bash on the 1200. My dad's was like a piece of art, and was very, very comfortable to hold, and is very pretty, but my 870 just outperformed it. Whether this was due to poor maintenance (or perhaps overmaintenance, since my dad treats his firearms like gold), or lack of use (was last fired in 1978), I don't know.
I think what really mattered was that we all had fun, even though my mom and brother both ended up with nasty bruises, and we got to have a whole seperate adventure tracking down a Wal-Mart that had sporting clays in stock! And I think we ended up breaking about 50 clays trying to get the hang of that hand-held thrower!
-Tom Rodriguez
I wanted to go check out the NCSA down there, but they were closed (at least to the public) that day, so we ended up down on Nacogdoches off of 1604 at an outdoor range at about 4pm on a really NASTY day (forecast was about 102F w/87% humidity), with my mom, dad, brother, an 870 and a 1200. Nothing fancy here, just throw some clay (manual throwing, no machines), and shoot it. Started off with a nice warmup of the 870, missing just about everything that was thrown. Got into the swing of things and starting making lots of clay dust explosions. We traded guns around quite a bit, and I have to say, the 1200 feels really nice in the hands, and the kick seemed a little less than the 870. The trigger was also nice, though it was unclear if it was a custom job (my dad has had it for a long time and couldn't remember, and I'm not sure of the date of manufacture since I keep forgetting to write down the SN). Unfortunately, it was also somewhat difficult to load (I didn't like the way the shells locked into the loading port, and the lack of a spring (by design, or missing part?) meant that you had to hold each round in while you hoped the guide would fall back into place to hold it in), and ejecting shells ended up with about 75% of the hulls getting stuck in the ejector. It also did NOT handle the heat well. My 870 was rock-solid, as I've come to expect, and after the 1200 had become a little too hot than was comfortable, the 870 kept going and going and going, though even it succumbed to the continued firing and the ambient heat.
This is in no way a bash on the 1200. My dad's was like a piece of art, and was very, very comfortable to hold, and is very pretty, but my 870 just outperformed it. Whether this was due to poor maintenance (or perhaps overmaintenance, since my dad treats his firearms like gold), or lack of use (was last fired in 1978), I don't know.
I think what really mattered was that we all had fun, even though my mom and brother both ended up with nasty bruises, and we got to have a whole seperate adventure tracking down a Wal-Mart that had sporting clays in stock! And I think we ended up breaking about 50 clays trying to get the hang of that hand-held thrower!
-Tom Rodriguez