doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Help Needed Choosing a Side by Side

Neither one is made in Italy. The Uggie is Spanish and the DeHaan is Turkish. DeHaan has a very good reputation for customer service and support, but I'd still rather have the Uggie. If you decide to buy a Turkish gun, look for a used one because their resale is pretty soft.

Re the above post about using imported shells, my opinion is that you don't want or need to used imported shells for casual clays. In 12 or 20, you can shoot Estate for $0.20/shell, Win AA for $0.24 (sale price, and they are always on sale around here), or Fed/Rem field loads for $0.19. Buy a gun that will use whatever is on sale. The more you can afford to shoot, the better you will get. Use the imported stuff for your vintage English game gun.

Sorry my mistake -- yes the Ugartecheas are made in Spain (I guess the name fooled me). I'm leaning toward a new CZ Ringneck as their warranty is 5 years and are very reasonable priced (less than $1k). I would be concerned at buying a used gun made in Turkey as they had very poor quality after CZ and DeHaan ramped up their sales in mid 2000. My understanding is that after CZ and DeHaan started complaining (in fact DeHaan refused a whole shipment I believe) the manufacturer tightened up QC. Most gun postings do not quote the year of manufacture. I'm going to look at one today to judge its fit and finish. The DeHaan looks to be a very good value but the 9-12 month wait is too much.
I don't think the CZ comes with a recoil pad. Are they expensive to fit if you want to maintain the LOP?

If you are handy with wood, you can cut the stock and fit a recoil pad yourself. I've done it many times and it takes care and going slowly.

Modern European guns are proofed for CIP standards and American shells comply with SAAMI. The Ugartechea boxlock is a great gun - in my opinion (and it's only an opinion) it is probably one of the really good deals in new SxSs.

It is a personal decision whether or not one would feed it a steady diet of SAAMI shells. I suspect nothing would happen because practically everyone in this country who owns modern European-proofed shotguns uses American shells at least some of the time, but I've come to like the 21/2-inch shells for my 12 ga guns. Purely personal.

By the way, if you're going to buy a new Uggie you might ask to have it proofed for steel. AYA will do this for an extra 40 bucks or so - I don't know if Ugartechea will.

Allow $75-$100 to have a good pad fitted. Lots of used guns already have pads, and the pads often bring down the price, so another reason to look in the used market.

Speaking of pads, the NECG Quick-mount Recoil Pad is something to consider:

http://www.newenglandcustomgun.com/

I have used these - they are very nice and have the option of being swapped out for ones of different lengths for the times you shoot in shirtsleeves rather than in winter clothing.

All this aside, when you get your new gun you may wish to shoot it as much as possible before worrying about recoil or changing the stock - you may come up with a vastly different conclusion about what you need or want. Don't assume you will need or want a pad.

ER, if the gun is the right weight and fits you and you aren�t shooting daft loads (an ounce of 7�s will do all you need) then forget all this recoil pad nonsense, you can shoot 300 shells and not notice a thing, best, Mike

Thanks Mike. I have found a very nice DeHaan S2 in 20 gauge at a reasonable price ($1400) that I'm looking at. Not sure of the age but looks in almost like new condition.

Well I went and purchased a used (but as new) DeHaan SC 20 gauge for a very reasonable price. This will be my main sporting clays gun. I'm still considering purchasing a 16 gauge and it will be either a DeHaan SGr or a Ugartechea LCS Upland Classic Grade I or II. The only issue with the Uggie is that it has a splinter fore end and I'm not sure how hot the barrels will get when shooting sporting clays. Anyone got any idea? I know you only shoot two at each station so shouldn't be too bad right?
Thanks
Alan

Don't sweat stuff like that. The purpose of a forend is to keep the barrels on, not to grab hold of. You should be holding the barrels themselves and the splinter facilitates this.

If they get too hot use a glove or a barrel shield.

I know it's a personal taste but beavertail forends really look clunky to me as opposed to the sleek appearance of an English stock in combo with a splinter forend.

The norm for shots at a sporting clays station is 10. In casual shooting, our group most often shoots only 5-6.

Barrels can get smoking hot in the summer and can burn enough to cause 2nd degree burns. Thin leather gloves don't help much when the barrels get that hot. A splinter forend guard made of leather covered spring steel is the standard aid for a splinter forend. It helps a bunch. I wouldn't buy a dedicated target gun with a splinter forend. That's just me. I'm very happy to have a splinter forend on a field gun though.

It's back to: do you want to shoot sporting clays to the best of your ability, or do you want to shoot sporting clays to the best of your ability with a gun that is not optimized for the game? There's a difference. There's also individual features that get you incrementally closer to the optimized gun.

You chose a sxs instead of a o/u. I'm sure you're aware that an o/u is accepted as the standard in the target game and some features give an advantage to the o/u. As long as you realize you likely give up something in the way of target breaking when you chose not to follow the established configurations of target guns, you'll still enjoy shooting, even if it's a .410, muzzle loading, double trigger, damascus, no forend, straight stocked gun with 4" of drop and a 13" LOP.

To many shooters, the enjoyment is shooting the gun in hand to the best of their ability. Others need to break more targets than the next guy. Some need both. Have fun.