While the gun fits me perfectly, I'm concerned about malfunctions during the first two range visits. I bought this new SX3 on Thursday. This is the synthetic model, 3" chamber, 26" barrel, manufactured in February. The gun was broken down, and I wiped the sticky oil residue from it. The shotgun was then oiled with Remoil and reassembled. Here is the summary of the failures:
Day one - trip to pattern the shotgun, aprox 40 rounds fired:
a. Winchester Xtra-lite target load, 2 3/4 Dr Eq, 1 oz, 7.5 shot, "AAL127".
5 round fired, 3 failed to eject. Does not like light loads, so I stopped using them.
b. Winchester Heavy game load, 3 3/4 Dr Eq, 1 1/8 oz, 8 shot, "XU12H8".
25 rounds fired, 1 failed to eject.
c. Federal Tactical buckshot, 00 buck, 8 pellets, "LE133 00"
5 rounds fired, 1 did not chamber. My usuall method of loading one at time is to toss the round into the ejection port without making any effort to line it up with the chamber. In this case, the round became wedged between the partly closed bolt and the chamber. The round was pointed up at about a 45-degree angle. As a result, the plastic hull had heavy cut marks. This problem will continute the following day during a sporting clays trip.
Day two, 130 rounds of sporting clays:
All rounds fired were Winchester Heavy game load, 3 3/4 Dr Eq, 1 1/8 oz, 8 shot, "XU12H8".
a. One failure to eject.
b. Three failures to chamber, using my favored method described above.
The SX3 runs perfectly when the shells are fed from the magazine. In single shot mode, it seems that shell placement is important in order for it to be chambered correctly.
I'm hesitant to draw any conclusions about reliability until I put a couple hundred more rounds through this Winchester. While I can reasonably hope that the ejection problem will work itself out as the gun becomes broken-in, I don't have such hopes for the loading problem.
I'm glad I did not trade in my trusty 1100 before trying the Winchester...
Day one - trip to pattern the shotgun, aprox 40 rounds fired:
a. Winchester Xtra-lite target load, 2 3/4 Dr Eq, 1 oz, 7.5 shot, "AAL127".
5 round fired, 3 failed to eject. Does not like light loads, so I stopped using them.
b. Winchester Heavy game load, 3 3/4 Dr Eq, 1 1/8 oz, 8 shot, "XU12H8".
25 rounds fired, 1 failed to eject.
c. Federal Tactical buckshot, 00 buck, 8 pellets, "LE133 00"
5 rounds fired, 1 did not chamber. My usuall method of loading one at time is to toss the round into the ejection port without making any effort to line it up with the chamber. In this case, the round became wedged between the partly closed bolt and the chamber. The round was pointed up at about a 45-degree angle. As a result, the plastic hull had heavy cut marks. This problem will continute the following day during a sporting clays trip.
Day two, 130 rounds of sporting clays:
All rounds fired were Winchester Heavy game load, 3 3/4 Dr Eq, 1 1/8 oz, 8 shot, "XU12H8".
a. One failure to eject.
b. Three failures to chamber, using my favored method described above.
The SX3 runs perfectly when the shells are fed from the magazine. In single shot mode, it seems that shell placement is important in order for it to be chambered correctly.
I'm hesitant to draw any conclusions about reliability until I put a couple hundred more rounds through this Winchester. While I can reasonably hope that the ejection problem will work itself out as the gun becomes broken-in, I don't have such hopes for the loading problem.
I'm glad I did not trade in my trusty 1100 before trying the Winchester...