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Friend of mine is looking at a 12ga clays model. Would appreciate hearing from those who may have experience with this gun. Thanks.

I have one in 20 ga with 30" barrels. Like it a lot. The 12's tend to be heavy but that's OK for a dedicated clays gun.

I shoot a lot with a friend who has one and who has chronic trouble with the ejectors. He's often digging out the shell with his jacknife. I don't like the way the gun handles, but that is personal.

I had a sporting clays gun that I used for skeet with Briley ultra light tubes and a custom stock. Shot it well for several years. Never cared for it in 12 ga. as it seemed to have more recoil than expected. I have owned the 12 and 20 sporting clays guns as well as the odd 20 and several 28 ga guns. Of the group I like the 28 best. The 28 is best balanced of the group and deadly on quail and early season doves.

You know the gun was designed to be a 20 ga. field gun not a clays gun. Original concept was a 20 gun to fill the nich a lot like the RBL tried to fill. It just morphed into field, clay target and any other type gun over time. Not doing anything perfectly well but seeming to do a decent job of everything at the same time. A lot like a Remington 1100. Solid and basic but not a premium do everything gun.

Some people do have trouble with the ejectors and it can fail to cock if you do not open it fully. Tubes sets make the barrels so heavy they always cock but without tubes you need to make the barrels open fully to ensure cocking. If you reload you must resize well to keep the ejectors functioning well. Never bothered to figure out if it had tight chambers or weak ejectors. Just feed it good ammo and it works well.

I think I actually prefer my Ruger 20ga/30" to my Beretta SPII 20ga/30". I don't shoot a lot of clays and, for me, they are both dove guns.

Had a 12 ga 30" sporting model, as well as a 26" field model. I ran the clays gun to around 12k rounds. At that point the safety started going on in recoil. Lived with it for awhile, then it started doubling (fanfire). Ruger fixed it, but a friends clays model went off face before 30k after having the same safety/trigger issues. Saw the writing on the wall, so I sold mine. It kicked the snot out of me, too......worse than my 101s - which says something.

I think the 28s are neat.

Sam

I had a Sporting Clays model in 12 ga and liked it a lot.
It is not going to stand up to Perazzi type shooting volume,but I think for moderate volumes or a hunting gun it is a nice option.

As most of the people responding to this thread have indicated, I have never seen one hold up to much use well. The kicking seems a recurring theme as well.

I had a customer bring one in when I was still active at the gun shop. We installed a couple different recoil pads. He wound up going t oa recoil system and later traded Ruger off after spending a ton on the gun.

As an owner of a sporting clays range, I can say there's a reason we don't see many. There have been a few guys who brought them out on a regular basis. Every gun eventually had problems of one sort or another after even a medium volume of shooting. I'd say the 12g Red Labels would make a fine field gun, but I'd avoid using them for any clays shooting except for maybe the semi-annual rounds before dove season.

As said, there's a good reason you don't see any serious or top guns using them for target shooting where a lot of shells will be fired - they don't hold up.