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Which shells???

T

thouk

Copper BB
Hey Ya'll,
I just bought myself a brand new SA-20. It has a 28 inch barrel. My question is about which shells to use. As not having owned a shotgun before, I read the manual. In the manual is says to use 15/16 ounce shells. My question is what minimum shell weight have people been able to use reliably and still have the gun cycle correctly? Wally World has the bulk pack of shells which weigh 7/8 ounce. Would these work. I read somewhere that someone was able to use the Remington bulk but not the Federal. Please give me some guidance. Thanks for your help, Tony
 
I do not have a lot of experience with using the Mossberg SA-20 but I would guess it would still cycle the lighter loads but would begin to jam once the shotgun began getting dirty. Let us know how it goes if you end up trying the lighter loads.
 
thouk said:
Hey Ya'll,
I just bought myself a brand new SA-20. It has a 28 inch barrel. My question is about which shells to use. As not having owned a shotgun before, I read the manual. In the manual is says to use 15/16 ounce shells. My question is what minimum shell weight have people been able to use reliably and still have the gun cycle correctly? Wally World has the bulk pack of shells which weigh 7/8 ounce. Would these work. I read somewhere that someone was able to use the Remington bulk but not the Federal. Please give me some guidance. Thanks for your help, Tony
Click to expand...

Hi. Do not use 7/8 as it is equivalent to .875 oz. If you use anything less than 15/16 which is equivalent to .937 oz (almost an oz), you will have feeding/cycling issues. This gun was designed to use ammunition that is 15/16 oz. or more (you can find this information on page 5 of the owner’s manual).

Hope this helps.....
 
I have one of the SA-20's it will cycle any "factory" 20 GA ammo I've found, EXCEPT, the 100 round "Universal" boxes that Wal-Mart carries. It will fire the "Universals" if the gun is very clean, but after 50 shells or so it starts having problems...

I have shot 7/8 oz loads from Federal & Remington with no troubles at all.

Winchester "AA"s work great, too....

Smitty
 
An update.
I had read on Shotgunworld.com a fix for the shell predicament. What you have to do, at least what I did, is get a twelve gauge barrel brush. I also got some 0000 steel wool. I wrapped it around the brush. It doesn't take too much. Just a little. I put the cleaning rod in my drill and applied some oil to the steel wool. I spun the brush down to the forcing cone. I did it for about two or three minutes. I then cleaned her up and took her to the range. I found the Federal bulk pack ammo has a high brass while the Winchester does not. The Federal bulk fired fine from the beginning. The Winchester would stovepipe on me. After cleaning the chamber and receiver up I can fire any of the bulk ammo and have no stovepipes. So there ya go. I hope that helps. Tony
 
We took my wife's new SA-20 Bantam out today and ran 175 rounds of 7/8 oz Federal loads through it and we had many, a lot, of feeding issues. Very frustrating.


After reading this, I am confused.

Do the 15/16 makes that much of a difference?

And a couple of people here said they had zero problem with those same loads, Federal Game & Target loads 7/8 oz, 20gauge, 2 3/4"


Perplexed.
 
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[quote="gunsandthings] Hi. Do not use 7/8 as it is equivalent to .875 oz. If you use anything less than 15/16 which is equivalent to .937 oz (almost an oz), you will have feeding/cycling issues. This gun was designed to use ammunition that is 15/16 oz. or more (you can find this information on page 5 of the owner’s manual). Hope this helps.....[/quote]


Well, I don't own that particular shotgun and don't have the manual, but according to the man quoted above...( highlighted )

Almost every firearm I own can cycle 99% of the factory ammo available...and some just hit POA/POI better with a certain brand...and that can depend on powder used, bullet weight, crimp, etc. Then you got the fouling factor...how many rounds before the gun starts jamming....And that's going to be especially true with a semi-auto.
 
Thanks for the responses.


Yes, I saw that in the manual after reading this thread. So I called my local Academy (sporting good store where I bought this ammo) and inquired about the 15/16 oz, they said they not only do not have any but never carry any.


So I googled it and only looked at one or two places and it appears the 15/16 oz - 20 gauge shells run about ~$2 a piece. So a $350 gun "appears at first glance" to require $2 shells to function properly. At 200 shells I could buy the gun again. That is not comforting and I wish I had known this before I bought the gun. Live and learn.


I will buy a variety of boxes next time and see if I have better luck with any other cheap brand and then consult a gunsmith to see if it can be remedied cheap, maybe similar to the advise given above about using the cleaning rod, steel wool, and drill.



* Update. I have now called all three local places for me to get ammo, Academy, Cabelas, and Cheaper than dirt and none of them carry 15/16. The guy at Cabelas suggested 1 oz loads.

Nice choice of suggested ammo Mossberg! :?

As I said though I will buy a variety next time and just see how things go.
 
Dbag,
I cleaned up the inside of the chamber up to the forcing cone with a 12 gauge brush and some steel wool on the brush. I put the rod and the brush combo in my drill and spun it for about two minutes or so. I put some oil on the brush for good measure. I can now use any of the cheap bulk stuff whether it be high brass or low brass stuff. It has no cycling problems at all now. You might want to try what I just said. It will be a good gun for you after you clean it up. If you feel inside the chamber you will see that it is kinda rough. Clean it up and that will go away. Hope that helps, Tony
 
The 1 ounce shouldbe good to go. The problem is with loads too light not having enough energy to eject and cycle through.

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My first outing with a SA-20 Tactical proved the owners manual to be accurate. 7/8 ounce loads will not reliably cycle. That said I had no problem finding 1 ounce shot loads at Farm King which functioned flawlessly. Next range outing I'll try some 3" loads but anticipate they'll have plenty enough horsepower to cycle the action. I guess that's the main advantage of a pump shotgun, they'll cycle anything. But I'm really impressed with the SA-20 and glad they built it in 20 gauge.
 
I bought my son a new SA-20 on Sunday even though I was concerned about this. We cleaned out all packing oil, lubed it properly and took it to the club. He shot about 3 1/2 boxes of Remington Gun Clubs and STS 7/8 oz loads. On the second shot the spent shell ejected and the bolt closed on an empty chamber with a shell between the carrier and the bolt. I suspect this was due to user error because several times afterward when loading the magazine he would not push it in far enough and it would pop back into this position so I think the shell may have been in that location when he fired the first shot. Beyond that it function flawlessly.
 
Brudd: I have had the same issue with the SA-20. bolt closed on an empty chamber and live shell under the bolt using 7/8 and 1 oz. much less with 1 oz. it is probably not not operator error especially if not on the first auto load from the mag. also had many stovepipes even with 1oz rounds also but not as often. 7/8 and 3/4 slugs almost always cycle. (indoor range)
 
Why even look for 15/16 oz shells? Just get 1 oz field loads which are very common hunting loads for a 20 ga. if the 7/8 oz shells won't work for you. Polishing the chamber sounds like a great idea regardless of the shells you use.
 
I can only make assumptions by the way my SA20 seems to behave.

I have found that most 7/8 oz brass base loads will cycle.
However, the Walmart bulk shell bases are apparently not brass.
Not sure what they are using? Most likely steel. Those are the ones that have issues.
I'm not sure if the steel is not cooling as fast as the brass-based shells and therefore are sticking.

With any brass base shells, you can pull the trigger as fast as you can and the SA20 will run perfectly. With the Wally World steel based ones... not so much. The Winchester bulk shells are worse than the federal bulk. The Federal ones will sometimes run a few shells without sticking.
 
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