doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Winchester 23 quality

23's are solid post ww2 guns...but for similar money, one can have a far better american made ww2 era gun...like the 21...or a late pre war parker or fox...

I�ve been looking for model 21�s and they seem to be higher. Light duck and heavy duck $2800-3800

That would leave you with a wealth of 101's to choose from.

And on the M23 thing - IIRC there was a minor problem in them with the ejectors, or hammers, or trigger somethings. Ejectors I think. Been a long time since I checked it out but at one time I was gonna get one of them and then I came across the problem thingie. You might want to check that out.
just a thot

Good lord. I am 155lbs and here I am about ready to shoot my new Krieghoff .470 NE double rifle. Can�t wait to see how much it punishes me.

Recoil is relative. Everyone has a different threshold. It's mind over matter. If you don't mind............. it don't matter.

SRH

I agree with Stan here. A persons weight has little to do with it.An older neighbor of mine had an old 12ga 30" single barrel "Hardware brand, don't recall the exact name. Once several of his daughters & families were vising him. I had been invited down also. We got that old single out & shot it a bit.
I was around 16 at the time & weighed around 150 lbs. One of his Grandsons was around 13 & weighed about 99 Soaking wet if he was wearing heavy clothes . Neither of us had any problem shooting it. One of his Son-in-laws was there & probably weighed at least 200 & was Not Fat. He was a big city mail carrier in the days when they walked a beat with that big leather pouch slung on their shoulder & was solid as a Brick. He fired that old 12 one shot & said he won't shoot it again for $100.00, it kicked him so bad,
Go figure.

When I was shooting skeet I found the big guys (not fat) shot the small gauges. I surmised that large guys absorbed more recoil into their shoulders. Slim guys' shoulders moved more easily.

Builder, to a large extent I agree with you.
However I'm not tall only reaching around 5'9", this guy was at least 6'. Even after I became Roly-Poly (Fat) & went well above 200 lbs recoil still didn't bother me. I think a lot of the solution is to be certain the gun is snug into your shoulder & then learning to roll with the punch, don't try to Brace against it.

I once bought a new 20ga 3" double which was uncomfortable even with the
2�-1 loads. It came with a recoil pad that was spongy soft. I changed it out to a firmer pad & after that was a mere pussy cat, even shot a few of the 3" mags through it & was not as bad had been previously with the lighter loads. That spongy pad just gave it "Jumping Room".

Sensitivity was certainly not the issue with the 101 for either my wife or me. Her MX8 pigeon gun is barely more than 7lbs and she shoots factory pigeon loads with no problem. My fave old Mirage is 7lb3oz and is a delight to shoot with Fed pigeon loads. Our experience with the 101 was far from unique as the guns have a heavy rep as face slappers. I'm sure there are a number of possible reasons but I had no interest in the exploration. The Beretta 682 that replaced the 101 had no problems at all.

Go figure

I think it might be how it fits you. In 1966 I bought a 101 30" 12ga field gun 2 3/4" F&F and put over a quarter million shells through it shooting international trap and after I retired opened the chokes and used it to shoot live birds at hunt tests. I liked it so much I bought another one with 26" barrels and had them opened to sk & sk for skeet shooting and grouse(I've been shooting it for 50 yrs).

I can't shoot a 686 for beans but a Superpose Lightning works great.