T-Stick -- My AyA 4/53 20 is 5 lbs 10 oz. Simple checkered butt. I use 1200 fps 7/8 oz loads or thereabout on wild birds, and I sometimes go to two and a half dram equiv 1 oz. loads. There is no pain in the field. I'm not a big guy.
On the skeet field I shoot std. factory and handloaded relatively hi-pressure 7/8 oz skeet loads (1200 fps 7/8 oz). After a while the gun can punish you, but it isn't bad. I won the 20 ga. skeet champ with it at the Vintager's event in Northbrook IL in 2005. If you shoot 4 or 5 boxes you'll be fine. Taking a break in the middle of your shooting makes it even better. I've put in a 250 round day with it at skeet, and it does tire me out more than my skeet gun. But I won't do that a lot, and there's no great reason to. Are you really going to shoot 10 boxes of skeet or sporties with it every day? It's a field gun. Get the gun fit right and mount it right and it'll never bother you. If you simply must shoot it all day at the gun club, put a KickEez pad on it.
Think about those guys with the 6 to 6.5 pound 12's shooting American 1.125 oz shells! That's much worse. Go through the recoil math -- that 12 gauge example at 6.5 pounds shooting 1.125 oz. kicks like a 5 pound 20 with 7/8 oz! Try a nice 1.375 oz 1295 fps load in that 6.5 pound 12 -- good for going through back-bones of long going-away pheasants -- Hooo Boy!!! Make sure you hold on to the gun. You can feel everything flex -- in you as well as the gun! Now doing that all day is nonsense. You can get away with it a half dozen times in a day, or maybe in your life. Going to the "standard hi-velocity load" in the 12 (1.25 oz and 1330 fps), which a lot of people do all day is only 4 percent less recoil than that wicked 1.375 oz load!
The 20? No sweat.
Have Fun,
Tony Lowe
