Stoeger Coach Gun DT .410 3" 20" A-Grade Satin Walnut, Blue Side-by-Side Shotgun 31410

As a person who grew up shooting shotguns, it's just not my thing as an adult. But I decided to add one of these to my collection as just an easy to shoot and will be a good snake charmer for the cabin. I ended up going out to visit a buddy at his farm and we had a grand old time shooting cans and cardboard to pattern the shot spread on the coach gun and his new skeet gun. Wow I am very pleased with the spread of the shot . It reminded me of using a duck bill. This shotgun would also be perfect for a kids bird gun and or skeet given how wide the spread can be using bird shot. But with the Winchester pdx defender shells with small shot and disc's has more of the traditional spreads that was about the size of a coconut or cantaloupe at a distance of around 25ft. As for the wood stock goes its just beautiful and has a great grain pattern. To the extent that I would expect the quality of the wood to be like that on a high end shotgun like an over under or side by side. But it was a pleasure to seeing it on a cheap $500 shotgun. As for what I am not very fond of or would change that would definitely be the fact that it has a fixed choke and I am preferential to have the ability to swap chokes and customize the choke for whatever the tasks are and the fact that it's a fixed full choke so no slugs. But I purchased it as a plinker so no big deal. But I definitely wish that Stoeger had hammer models as well as hammerless only. But the fact that you can't pull both triggers at the same time is great for new shooters but I definitely tried to contort my trigger finger to pull the trigger on both barrels at the same time and the best was a slight delay between the primary and secondary trigger being pulled. But thats just me. I definitely love the light recoil of the bird shot and just slightly more recoil for the self defense loads. I also like the fact that it is definitely not a loud shot gun and no matter what shells that I was using the shots were very quiet for a shotgun it reminds me of a surpressed 9mm pistol with subsonic ammo or a Roman Candle firework. So its definitely a good snake charmer that's not going to be noticed by the neighbors if you need to dispatch a venomous snake. But I definitely wouldn't go as far as saying that it's hearing safe. I will definitely say that if your looking for a fun quality shotgun this is definitely one to look at. I have run probably 120 shells through it so far and it has been a ton of fun and it is a great looking shotgun hanging on the wall on an old fashioned gun rack. I am definitely impressed with the quality that Stoeger has put into the gun and the fact that I am now wanting to get the 12 Guage and the 20 Guage models to also hang on the rack along with a set of Ruger Vaqueros or the old Colt Peacemaker replicas to hang on the wall with the shotguns at the cabin. I have not had a Stoeger since I was a little kid and just getting into shooting and my uncle gave me an old break action single shot from Stoeger when I was probably 6 or 7 years old. My parents were not very happy about it and he basically sold them on it since he had seen me with my bb gun filling up the barrel with bbs and pumping up the gun around 25 times effectively Making it have a shotgun effect on the target. Along with my uncle telling my parents that if they only want me to have low power shells then just buy whatever the smallest shot that's available for it and it would be like the bb gun. But 43years later it brought back a ton of memories of my childhood and shooting with my friends some of them who are no longer with us do to various things. But I definitely had a great time shooting this shotgun as well as the other guns and my wife is now wanting her own old school side by side coach gun as well as adding an m4 to the collection of older shotguns that we have including several family heirlooms that she has been given custody of even though they should have gone to her brother who is a prohibited person who has some health issues. Nobody is wanting him to have access to guns let alone the heirlooms that have been in her step-fathers family since the 1800s for some of them. But since we are the only ones who have guns and he knew we would respect the old firearms and certainly would not sell them off. But would pass them on to our kids who are all adults themselves these days. Plus we love the history of the old guns and knives in general. Most of the older guns are from the 1800s. Its a decent collection of older guns from the late 1800s and early 1900s and several modern ones that he has purchased in the last decade. But my favorite is the old 1911 from ww2 that his father used in the Philippines when he was in the navy along with an old massive unserilized and unmarked shotgun that probably goes back to the Civil War or earlier.