Grunt
Member
Ok, so I grew up shooting nothing but 12 gauges and 12 gauges only. Recently I got my son a Remington 870 in 20 gauge for him to grow into when he's old enough to handle one. Now I did want to take it out and test fire it for function as well as see how it would pattern with some #3 buck as well. During lunch today while our class was off the range, I fired a few rounds through it as well as a few rounds through my Mossberg 590 firing 00 buck. The 20 gauge was Federal 2 3/4" #3 buck with 20 pellets. The 12 gauge loads were Federal 2 3/4" 00 buck with 12 pellets. Mossberg is listed as weighing about a half pound heavier than the Remington although the numbers escape me at the moment. What I found was what I expected, the 12 gauge had a little more recoil to it than the 20 gauge. However, (probably due to the lighter weight of the Remington) the 20 gauge had a more snappy recoil than the heavier 12 gauge that was more of a heavier shove. I guess you could say that in the handgun world, if the 12 gauge was a .45 ACP, the 20 gauge level of recoil would have been similar to that of a .40S&W round would be a good comparison. A little heavier recoil than I was expecting from the 20 gauge but I would think that if all else was equal, the 20 gauge would have a lot less recoil than the 12 gauge. Sure things could have been different depending on the loads (trap loads, reduced recoil loads, slugs, etc.) but I wanted to stick with a round that is a common defensive round with respect to their gauges. Well, if nothing else, it's good to now know what my boy can expect when he's ready to start shooting.