doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com winchester 101 for skeet--pros and cons

I shoot a fair amount of skeet, though on a club, not hugely competitive basis. For 12 and 20 gauge I use a 60s vintage Browning superposed and for 28 gauge, I use a Perazzi MX 28, which, with Briley chokes, does double duty in other respects. I have used a model 42 for local 410 events and although a lot of fun and very classy, does not quite get the job done for me, probably due to my shucking technique. I am thinking of getting a model 101 20, 28 and 410 set, which seems to be only a little bit cheaper than a 101 410 alone. Reactions? Good quality and reliability? Good enough for my level of skeet? Thanks

I think that those 101 sets were good guns and good value. In a 20 they are dove killers supreme. They made some 30" bbl'd versions too. I have a .410 101 Skeet with 28" bbl & 2.5 " chambers. It breaks more 25's for my bud than it does for me, but that has nothing to do with the gun itself ;-) If there is anything to get jerky about it is that those guns tended to be a bit 'light' .. by today's standards. It does not sound like you have any of the modern hangups regarding using more than one gun or only being able to address a skeet target with a tubed gun, permanently restricted to a 20 in the biggest iteration, with a set of 12 ga. 'carrier' bbls. Because of that, I think you will enjoy your choice of guns immensely.

Some of the 12ga. 101's got bad raps in the face slapper role, but in truth they were no worse than the SKB's of the same vintage, if you can take any consolation from that bit of arcane knowledge. It NEVER applied to the smaller gauged guns, don't let anyone tell you dif.

Over the years I owned a couple of the Winchester Model 101 20-, 28-gauge, .410-bore Skeet sets. They were nice, and for "club" shooting should be great. For NSSA competition I eventually went to a heavy club of a Remington 3200 28-inch barrel tube set. Not a fine gun by any means, but a clay target breaking machine for NSSA groove shooting. The three-barrel Brownng Superposed Skeet sets are looked down on by collectors, and can often be found for the same price as a single 28-gauge or .410-bore Superposed.

Shot one squad with a Classic Doubles 101 "Classic Skeet" gone over by Rich Cole. Maybe that's not a Winchester. Furrin-feeling thing to me but there was a 23 in it.

jack

If you are shooting an MX28 and a pair of 60s Supers, the 101 (and the little bit of money you will spend on it) won't satisfy you. Sure it's a good gun when in high condition, but the Krieghoff K-20 with .410 barrels is a great gun, and available with the now popular 30" barrels in .410. Maybe not for you, but it would be my choice.

Bill, I disagree. I think he would like the 101 very much. I have a 20 and 28, both Skeet guns. They handle great for Skeet and hunting. I have never had any problems with them.