if you were building your next favorite 12ga shotgun for all day hunting the western praires what gun weight you would shoot for?

For me, about 6 1/4 to 6/12 lbs. Much lighter than that and I don’t shoot it well. Much heavier and it’s a chore to carry all day. Just my opinion. YMMV

6 1/2 pounds is enough for an Upland gun to be carried for miles and miles.
More likely to be a 16 gauge than a 12 these days, for this old guy.

If pheasants are involved I like something around 7 lbs. Heavy enough to swing well, handles the recoil of a few 3 1/4 DE 1 1/4 oz of shot loads when required & not too heavy for long hunts.

6 1/2 pounds is enough for an Upland gun to be carried for miles and miles.
More likely to be a 16 gauge than a 12 these days, for this old guy.

6-6.25#

6 1/4 pound. Mine is 3" 20, but a 12 or 16 would be fine too.

Operative phrase is 'all day'.

It's the old story of balancing weight with effectiveness. I walk alot of miles for ruffed grouse and they require a very rapid response to be effective so....I shoot a 5 3/4lb 16. If I was pursuing more thick-skinned game such as pheasant, I'd be shooting a light-to-medium weight 12 bore. My own gun for that job is slightly heavier than what I'd consider to be perfection at 6 3/4 lbs. I'd expect that a 6 1/2 lb 12 would be about perfection, assuming you're not recoil sensitive.

Morning gun or afternoon gun?
I use a heavier gun in the morning and a lighter
gun after lunch.
Makes a difference.
Mike

That does become a component at some point, I suppose...

Not to mention the terrain, wind, temperature and snow depth. .

I'm still looking for that perfect late season, afternoon gun...

I am finding that a 12 gauge, just under 6 1/2lbs, is really nice to spend the day carrying, but, becomes a chore to practice with at the gun range with 1 1/8oz promotional ammo. 50 rounds of that stuff definitely leaves a mark. I am learning how to shoot off my right shoulder, and I’m not an especially quick study in this regard, and the recoil seems to affect me more. I am recoil sensitive anyway, something that hasn’t improved with age.
I had a retina detachment in my left, shooting eye, and the vision has not returned at a level good enough to consistently shoot with.
This has been my main offender, of late, and the gun I practice my half-assed right handed mount with:


I have doubles in 16, 20, 28, and a .410 pump that all have more manageable recoil. The 16 seems to strike a pretty good balance twixt weight (6lbs) and recoil, and the mostly in my head notion of using enough gun.
I used to hunt with a 6lb 12, usually with 1 oz loads, but, sometimes with stout 1 1/4oz pheasant medicine. But, it is a specific left hand gun, and recoil never bothered me when using it.

I might have been younger then.

Best,
Ted

I am somewhat recoil sensitive, can get a headache shooting more than 2 rounds of skeet if using 1 1/8 ounce loads, don't really like 1 ounce loads.

I do use my upland s x s guns, don't have a dedicated target guns. I solved my problem by loading 3/4 ounce for both 12 and 20 gauge skeet. I move up to 7/8 for crazy quail, etc.

Plus I really enjoy reloading.

All my upland guns, 12 or 16 gauge, are between 6 pounds 3 oz and 6 pounds 11 ounces.

I'm still young, only 62, so happy to carry any of them all day.

My normal upland field gun is one of several 6lb 16Ga’s.

Dove last year was a 7lb 12ga.

Late day gun has been a 5lb or so 24ga

Weight matters very little to me. Much more important to me are the handling characteristics. I have sub-5 lb. guns that handle like 6 1/2 lb. game guns, and 9 lb.+ doubles that are as quick as many 7 lb. guns.

MOI is much more important to me than weight.

SRH

Concur, overall weight is part of it, but the balance or better put as you have MOI is the dominant concern.

Come hunt with me sometime.

One does not have to give up MOI, or whatever acronym you wish to choose, to use a light gun. And the end of the day, a long day, in heavy cover, maybe snow, lots of cold and wind, a light gun is appreciated. And strangely, they can kill pretty well.

Everything is a trade off and the balance of that trade off is subject to a given set of circumstances.

A grouse thicket, any day, or a cat tail slew, hopefully after it is frozen solid, particularly after 6 or 8 hours of it, will be a lot worse with a 7 lb+ gun.

I don’t have a good grasp of dove or duck hunting that might not involve constant hiking. I do a bunch of walking.

It is different up here.
Best,
Ted

Never said weight was unimportant, It is, however A light gun unbalanced with poor handling characteristics is not a solution either.

My point, and I believe Stan’s too, is that handling or MOI as some describe it is enormously important. Further an otherwise heavier gun often feels lighter in the hand with better handling characteristics..

We have all encountered a gun which after shouldering it and told its weight we immediately thought, wow I would have guessed less.

No, thanks. If I want to hunt in tough conditions I'll stick with ducks in the hell-hole swamps I love so much. And, my 9 lb. 7 oz. SuperFox never seems to bother me there. You see, professor, in your attempt to paint me in an ignorant light it is you who overlook the obvious. Three times in my short post above I used the qualifier "to me". This because I was responding to a thread entitled "Field gun preferred weight". The title, and my response, were both tailored to the responder and his circumstances (thus the word "preferred"), both of which were ignored by you in your reply to me.

Besides, I don't hunt with persons who make a habit of "riding free" on other's backs.

See ya'll later. I'm off to shoot some clays.

SRH

Add me to the 6.5lb gun club. Many miles of following a Springer across the plains makes for a tired guy and dogs at the end of the day. My gun is actually 6lbs 9 ozs but it fits like it was made for me. Really looking forward to getting back at it.

Stan, you wouldn't know rough hunting it you tripped over it. Duck hunting sure aint it.

Pump up your ego and knock yourself out on those clays though. And make sure to take a gun with a lot of MOI or umammi or whatever your secret sauce for the day is.

Clearly you don't know much about duck hunting Brent. Either that or you are letting your political allegiances colour your hunting commentary. While I haven't hunted the swamps and flooded timber down Stan's way, there is no more exhausting hunting than working your way through a marsh. It's not all boat rides and sitting in a blind.

Whatever you say.

I've hunted ducks in Georgia too. It's nothing like an entire day chasing pheasants in late winter.

I like 5 3/4 - 6 1/2 lb for rough hunting (e.g, ruffed grouse). The gun I shoot best is a Browning Super 20 which weighs 6 lb 4 Oz. I shoot my SxS ok, but try as I may with the SxS guns, the O/U Browning is easier for me to shoot. A sub 6 lb gun is a pleasure in the grouse woods.

A lot of people agree with those notions. My single O/U, that is my Son’s at this point (he’d let me use it, I guess) is my Dad’s Silver Snipe.Doesn't seems heavy, but, it is 7lbs, and it will feel heavy at sundown.

Best,
Ted

6# seems like the perfect weight for me and I have a couple 12's, 16's and 20's in that range. The interesting thing is I shoot the same load out of all of them, 1 oz of # 5 or 6 shot for hunting.

Most of my skeet shooting is with my 12's and there it is 11/16 oz of 9's, the bar was in a loader I bought so I tried it and it breaks birds. For SC 7/8 oz of 8's.

For waterfowl my sxs's run a pound heavier but still 7/8 oz of ITX 6's or 1 oz of bismuth.

6 1/4 - 6 3/4 lbs. works well for me. The 686 pheasant gun below is an even 7 lbs. and the sling is quite nice. It's not like you need to walk port arms all day.




I've got a 30" 16 gauge FAIR Rizzini that came with sling hardware in the box. It's a nice 6lbs. 3 oz., but the sling would still be useful on long walks through unproductive cover.

5 3/4lb. 28 gauge gun, with a sling:



Bourgeois, no?

Best,
Ted

I am envious of those of you with five and three-quarter pound 16 gauge side-by-sides. As a matter fact, I’m currently in the market for one. In the meanwhile, I would use my6lbs 2oz English 12 ga sxs 2.5” chambers. I find that a gun much heavier than this is difficult to carry On the praires.

My lightest is a 5 lb 10 oz, 16 ga N Guyot, which I shoot fine. Most of the rest of my upland guns weigh between 6 lbs and 6 lbs 9 oz.

At my age, a shotgun in the vicinity of 6 lbs is a blessing when hiking around some of the Snake River or other river breaks here in Idaho, chasing chukar all day in warmer temperatures! A 7+ lb gun will break you of the habit real quick, unless one is just hunting the bottom of the draws or can get on top and hunt the top or is a young person in excellent condition.

I had a Midland XXV Featherweight 12 bore, except it had 28" barrels. It carried nicely and I shot it very well on quail, grouse and woodcock. It weighed 6lb, 1 oz after I put a pad on it. Like a fool I sold it.