Stoeger Double Defense
Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2011 11:00 am
Bought one a few weeks ago, and finally had the time to take it out to the range. Before I took it out, the action was a bit stiff, so I sanded the contact points with some 600 grit and finished off with 2000 grit paper. There's some topography on the surface due to the casting, but not all that unexpected on a double of this price range.
The regulation on the barrels with 2.75 Express slugs was suprisingly good, not the same, but good enough for defense purposes. Porting seemed to help with the heavier loads, since it didn't seem as flippy as my 870. Shells extracted smoothly and didn't have any sticking, I could just kind of flick the gun back and they would toss out over my arm. The green fiber sight was suprisingly helpful and worked well. (I have no need for the top rail, and I cut the bottom one down by 2/3 so there is just enough room in front of the hand guard for my X300.
Recoil with 3" magnum #4 buckshot was... significant, but boy did it make a mess of the target. Grouped the best with Hornady 00 superformance buck and hornady #4Bk loads, but ran everything without any issue.
The trigger is nice and very light. Safety was (to me) automatically disengaged when I moved my hand up to firing position and was well placed. Firing from the hip worked well, but with some remington super-velocity loads I did have a "B-BAM" when the recoil must have pulled my finger off the trigger enough for a reset then my attempt to control it deperessed it again. Both rounds went through the same very ragged target, which speaks to the flip reduction of the porting. (Full-auto side by side?
)
Overall, it seems worth the money, especially because they're affordable and work well. I am going to search out an additional recoil pad, because my shoulder is sooooore and bruised this morning, but it's the fun kind of bruise
The regulation on the barrels with 2.75 Express slugs was suprisingly good, not the same, but good enough for defense purposes. Porting seemed to help with the heavier loads, since it didn't seem as flippy as my 870. Shells extracted smoothly and didn't have any sticking, I could just kind of flick the gun back and they would toss out over my arm. The green fiber sight was suprisingly helpful and worked well. (I have no need for the top rail, and I cut the bottom one down by 2/3 so there is just enough room in front of the hand guard for my X300.
Recoil with 3" magnum #4 buckshot was... significant, but boy did it make a mess of the target. Grouped the best with Hornady 00 superformance buck and hornady #4Bk loads, but ran everything without any issue.
The trigger is nice and very light. Safety was (to me) automatically disengaged when I moved my hand up to firing position and was well placed. Firing from the hip worked well, but with some remington super-velocity loads I did have a "B-BAM" when the recoil must have pulled my finger off the trigger enough for a reset then my attempt to control it deperessed it again. Both rounds went through the same very ragged target, which speaks to the flip reduction of the porting. (Full-auto side by side?
)Overall, it seems worth the money, especially because they're affordable and work well. I am going to search out an additional recoil pad, because my shoulder is sooooore and bruised this morning, but it's the fun kind of bruise
