I went down to the local hook and bullet to look for my son a gift for Christmas.

He went duck hunting a few times with me this year and just had a blast. At 17, he's thoroughly outgrown his 870 Youth model in 20ga. and declared he wanted to get a 12 gauge. Of course, every young Alaskan man needs a utility 12 gauge...so his Christmas gift was decided upon.

I'd thought pretty hard that I would get him an 870 or perhaps a Benelli Nova, but the owner pointed me to a Stoeger 3500. I'd never had one, but danged if it isn't the spitting image of a SBE2- same Inertia Drive action and it eats 2.75-3.5" shells. Apparently Stoeger was getting ready to get sued by Benelli over patent infringement and Benelli just bought them instead. It's essentially a SBE2 built in Turkey.

The cash outlay was more than an 870 or a Nova, but it was certainly much less than even an M2.The fit and finish isn't quite Benelli...but for dragging through a swamp, it sure seems businesslike.

My buddy has the 3” version and really likes it. I’m sure it will serve your son well


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Sounds as if your lad will have a truly happy day when he finds that shotgun under the tree. Good move, Dad.

Your son will be a very happy . They are nice shotguns. I love it when a father and son find mutual interests that will let them "do" together for years to come. Some if my fondest memories of dad, is when we hunted together.

And, thank you for your kind reply to my shotgun thread.

Guy, not to hijack this thread, but this is an example of the problem you spoke about on how to expand the forum. The replies on a reloading thread and a shotgun thread are miles apart----not sure how many we have here that are not reloaders, but we obviously have many here who are not shotgunners ---not sure how we attract shotgunners to a Nosler bullet forum.

I can't speak for Nosler, but they're in the rifle & bullet business, not the shotgun business, so I suspect that this shotgun part of the forum is just here for those of us who also enjoy shotguns, for either target shooting or hunting. I'm happy with that. Gives me a place to post photos and questions about shotguns!

I'm not going to go try to attract shotgunners to this forum, just rifle & handgun shooters. Nosler builds wonderful bullets for both rifles and handguns, as well as their line of fine rifles. That's their strength.

Regards, Guy

I think that's going to be one heck of a shotgun for him!

Guy

I agree, I obviously did not state my case correctly. However, I will take anyone rifle, shotgun, muzzleloader, bow hunter--as long as they are polite and can/want to contribute, I would think that is o.k. I doubt very few hunters, even those using a bow, or shotgun does not also have a rifle----anyway, you bet, Nosler is a fine company, with great products and we are lucky they even have a forum--albeit, many of us find it is hard to access sometimes now. But that may be me and/or my Apple laptop ?

Back to this thread.-----Please Mike do let us know his reaction next Tuesday when he receives the shotgun and also when he take this first bird. It will be a memorable Christmas for him--as well as for you and your wife

hodgeman, well done.

reading your post made me wonder how many children or grandchildren were receiving firearms this Christmas from forum members.

We briefly tried out Evan's new Stoeger 3500 he received for Christmas. I've long been skeptical of automatic shotguns that purport to shoot everything from 2.75" to 3.5" loads. I've seen very few that actually pull it off well and none of them at the "under $1000" price point.

While not an exhaustive test, we crammed about as many types of shotgun shell through the Stoeger that we had on hand. Anything that had at least 1oz of shot at 3 dram equivalent cycled through without a hitch regardless of length. Any and all of the heavy duck loads went through it like corn through a goose.

The only load it choked on was a very light target load with 7/8oz. of shot at 2.75 dram...hardly the raison d'être for a magnum self shucking waterfowling gun. Even then, it only fumbled it once. My guess is that after it has a few hundred ran through it and isn't being shot at -5F...those will likely work just fine as well.

The design itself is basic Benelli Inertia Drive, albeit with less fit and finish work and a slightly reworked recoil system. You can feel more of the "ka-chunk" as the heavy bolt cycles than on my M2...but I'm guessing with some green heads or a goose locked up and flared out he'll never notice it.

So what is he getting for Christmas this year?