doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com What Does it Take For an SXS to Shoot Loose?

I have an old Stevens 215, it's a 12 gauge SXS with external hammers. It's mechanically flawless. I've used it quite successfully to reduce the resident starling population, I have used 1 1/8oz factory loads a 1200fps only thus far, and the gun has handled them just fine. I know that these old guns have been known to shoot loose easily with heavier loads, so I've been hesitant to run anything heavier through it. I would like to load some 1 1/4oz shells, and have data that is relatively low pressure for that shot weight. This gun, it has been approved as safe, all the same I would like to keep things below 10'000psi. Anyways, I'm aware that pressure is not a major factor in recoil, and that heavy recoil will do more to wear the gun than the pressure. I was wondering if any of you know what level of recoil this thing could take before wearing out, IE shooting loose. My max planned load would be 1 1/4oz @ 1250fps. This gun only locks up on the metal extension between the barrels.

1/8 ounce shot is not that much extra. What 1 1/8 can do 1 1/4 can only do as well as or slightly better. Your factory 1 1/8, 1200 fps most likely are 10k already. You could look at longshot powder loads to keep pressure down.

Most of us load low pressure to protect old wood not because the barrels are suspect. Weak actions or weak barrels need not be shot. Recoil is our enemy. And when you increase the weight of shot while keeping velocity constant you will increase recoil a lot. If I were trying to increase shot load I'd look to lower velocity slightly. 1100 fps verse 1200 does not sound like that much a difference but it is and anything you hit with it will not know if it came from 1100 or 1200. Dead is dead.

One factor in a Gun shooting loose is failure to properly lubricate the gun, especially the hinge pin.

"I was wondering if any of you know what level of recoil this thing could take before wearing out, IE shooting loose."

No one can answer that question, for your gun. The hang tag attached to the gun when new, possibly 100 years ago, likely called for a 1 1/8 oz. 3 Dr. Eq. load. No one knows what boomers have been used since. The head of the stock may crack prior to the gun shooting loose, or maybe not.

For reference:
1 1/8 oz. at 1150 fps in a 7.5 pound shotgun = 20 ft/lbs of free recoil
1 1/8 oz. at 1200 (3 Dram) in a 7.5 pound shotgun = 23.0 ft/lbs
1 1/4 oz. 3 1/4 Dr. Eq. (1220 fps) in an 8 pound gun = 25 ft/lbs

Slamming it shut may well do more damage than the shooting part.

You are shooting starlings, and want a heavier load? It might be considered a punt gun for the four and twenty blackbirds. I would go the other way. Try some Win AA Low Noise/ Low Recoil and see if your hit ratio changes any. It may actually improve.

my $.02

I stand behind Ken61 on this. The only loose break-actions guns I have ever seen were utterly void of any lubrication.

Slamming a gun shut, as opposed to lightly snapping it closed, can't be doing any good. I once had a guy close one of my trap guns so hard he couldn't get it open again. I shudder every time I think of it.

I may be wrong Catalog pages courtesy of Researcher

c. 1906 Stevens 225 "Adapted for any standard make of shell, loaded with either black or smokeless powder."



Post-WWI Stevens 235 "Any standard factory loaded shell."



Until Western Cartridge Co. introduced the 'Super-X Field' 12g 2 3/4" 1 1/4 oz. 3 3/4 Dr. Eq. (1330 fps) shell in 1922, the maximum "standard" load would have been 1 1/4 oz. 3 1/4 Dr. Eq.

Yeah, that's the same family of gun. I don't want to use 1 1/4oz on starlings, the gun may be changing homes, and the prospective new owner is a stickler for versatility, though he never hunts anything but partridge. I'll have to show him some of my patterning papers sometime. If the patent date for this model of gun was 1914, they were produced until 1927 I believe. If 1 1/4oz at the 3 1/4dram velocity of 1220fps was the heaviest load around when this gun was first made that's what I'll tell him the max is.

Get your money quick.

Old guns can't take the pounding of cheap modern ammunition. And it sounds like that will be the old guns diet after the trade.

There's a reason that of the millions made, few are in much condition 100 years later, and it isn't grease.
And it is a true curiosity as to why so many adverts claim "never to shoot loose".