The Benelli Nova/Supernova line: the easiest guns to field strip, but... I found is much easier to use my brass gunsmithing hammer and brass gunsmithing punch (no, wait, instead two wooden punches made from some old souvenir Panda Express chopsticks sitting on my kitchen table for over a year which I rounded and tapered the tips with my Swiss army knife and just committed to my gunsmithing toolbox, brass can still wear off bluing on pin ends and heads and leave a golden-color residue) set to knock those two takedown pins out of the receiver holding the trigger assembly and gently tap them back home again. If you have steel or nylon roll pin punches, those should work just as well. The book that came with the gun, my new Supernova, said to use the magazine tube cap as a pin tool but the point on the end of the cap isn't long enough to push the rear pin all the way home as it is in a recessed part of the receiver left-hand side. Using the rim of the cap as a hook to pull this rear pin out by the head doesn't work for the same reason. It just slips off the head of the pin. Too far deep in a recessed part of the receiver to get a good bite on the pin's head. All in all, this gun is much simpler to field strip than my Remington 870. You have to compress the bolt into the bolt carrier under spring tension according to the manual and tilt the bolt out of the receiver a special way to pull it out and carefully tilt it 45 degrees at a slight twist to put it back in but it's no big deal. The pump forend and action bars are pretty easy to get in and out of the receiver and engage with the bolt carrier.
haven't fired it yet ... just got it new out of the box yesterday morning ... reading the owner's book to get to know the gun still ... reading the manual, I took the gun down and put it back together already for practice .... all I know is the two beads line up perfectly when the gun is thrown up to my shoulder and that is good sign .... I still have to take up wingshooting marksmanship before I go hunting feathered game with the gun ... I have no shotgun hunting experience, only rifle experience .... I think I need an intro skeet lesson ... I need to learn how to pattern this gun as well ... I'm going to take it to my local range soon and fire at a stationary paper target just to make the gun even goes BANG! ... do I use the included I/C, M or F choke tube for the skeet range? ... I think dove shooters on stools usually have the I/C or Skeet tube in I want to start out dove shooting then maybe move on to pheasants and ducks
well skeet and what some call skeet [trap] are two different games. for real skeet [2 different houses and heights of targets] most use their most open choke, and a flatter shooting gun.[50-50] for trap [where the targets are going up and away from you] modified or tighter is preferred. and a gun with a higher point of impact is preferred. some guys use guns that shoot 100-120% high. I shoot modified in one gun for 16yd. trap and improved modified in another. I shoot full in both of them for 27yd. handicap modified in my dove and grouse gun [got no choice there, the choke has been stuck in there since like 1998] for duck hunting I shoot improved cylinder with larger shot sizes, and modified for number 2,3, and -4.
Old Mr. Gun Blue offers some shotgun patterning advice. He claims too many wingshooters have chokes too tight that birds are often ruined as table fare or cleanly missed. A dove, ideally, should not get more than five body pellets. My new Super Nova is a 28" 12 ga. Three choke tubes: improved cylinder, modified and full. I think I would start out at I/C in an open dove field over MOJO decoys with light dove/quail (field) loads. I could buy a special (one point more open) Skeet tube. Using cheap promo loads should get even wider patterns for dove. Doves are fast, small and tough to hit. Wide-but-sufficiently-dense patterns are a boon to getting a plate full of dove poppers that are delicious and not made into mince meat.
Dove season is half way over, ends Oct 31 Just grab some shells and head to the fields. Never used or needed decoys for doves. You're going to be shooting at doves that are a little more wary then opening day doves. I would go with the mod choke, and take the other choke tube with you. But what do I know, I've only hunted in Oklahoma 50 + years.
skeet, unlike trap, offers shots at every conceivable angle: incoming, outgoing, crossing, quartering: the game was originally invented as target practice for bird hunters: it has 8 stations around the clock and a box of shells shot and that is it .... trap only has targets outgoing more or less ... seldom will a dove fly in the manner as a target is presented from a trap house .. sporting clays is messy and complex I haven't yet shotgunned for sport but I once read a Shotgun Digest, 4th Edition, 1993, Jack Lewis book cover to cover. I understand a lot of book theory. https://projectupland.com/shotguns-and-shooting/wingshooting/the-history-and-invention-of-skeet-shooting-2/#:~:text=The title “Father of Skeet,and the rest is history. It is believed that skeet shooting was created to simulate the flushing of ruffed grouse so that a wingshooter could practice in the off season. That makes sense, since Charles Davis the inventor enjoyed ruffed grouse hunting.
I probably won't hunt birds this season. I need to take shotgun shooting lessons first. I'd like an intro to skeet. I'll have to see if there any skeet lessons and skeet fields around Fort Sill/Lawton. Then I have to find a place to hunt doves. I also have yet to acquire a retriever pup to work into a finished gun dog. I know nobody at or around Sill who hunts birds or ducks and/or has trained gun dogs. ideally I'd like to get into a private dove hunt first where field dogs are worked by handlers. My wife knows a couple of army guys who hunt deer in her unit. I have better chance of making a deer hunting opportunity than a bird hunting opportunity while at Sill. I have to hurry and get my rifle scope mounted and rifle sighted in in case a deer opportunity comes up just to be ready. I want to do hunting right, not take a half-arse approach.
Never used a dog for dove, but it would be handy. Private hunts aren't bad if they don't overcharge. Hunting dove on public land can be a pain around opening day. There's a good chance to get peppered by other hunters. If you get a chance, try some crow hunting.
I would probably have the two other tubes in my shooting vest along with the Benelli choke key. I still have to get some choke tube grease because the manual says so and some plastic cans to hold the spare tubes coz Benelli was too chintzy to include them. Benelli was nice enough to plug the magazine to a limit of two shells in the mag right from the factory to appease the ticket-happy game warden.
good target practice for dove? us damm-yankees have to approach everything with formalities yokel cowboys like to "git'er done" any old way, kinda like the joke about WD-40 in a blue can being "the product for everything" or the "Snap-On" set for certain ethnic groups name a redneck multi-tool how about a Walmart-bought pump shotgun!
Good target practice for shooting live flying things with a shotgun. The only good target practice for doves, are doves.
chuckle. doves do have their ways, but they got nuthin on teal. and I wish someone would tell the grouse I hunt to fly like a skeet target, gawd my life would be a lot easier this time of year.
That redneck probably has his freezer stocked with with wild game, I'll bet he didn't have to ask anyone how to hunt them.
