Real 20 Gauge Gun Weights

Real 20 Gauge Gun Weights

Often, far too often, you can forget the claimed catalog weights on shotguns. I decided to weigh several twenty gauges with the same calibrated electronic gauge, and here is exactly what they weigh.

Winchester SX3 Walnut Field, 28 inch, 6.5 pounds.

Benelli M2 APG 24 inch, 6.0 pounds.

Beretta 391 Urika 2 Gold, 26 inch, 6 pounds, six ounces.

Franchi Affinity 26 inch, 6.0 pounds.

CZ 720 28 inch, 6.5 pounds.

Original Browning Gold 20, 26 inch, 7.0 pounds.

Browning Silver Hunter 26 inch, 6.5 pounds.

Browning B-80 alloy, 26 inch, 6-1/4 pounds.

Browning B-80 steel, 26 inch, 7 lbs.

Beretta 303, 26 inch, 6-1/4 pounds.

Remington 1100 Sporting, 28 inch barrel, 8.0 lbs.

Weatherby SA-08 26 inch, 6.0 pounds.

Browning A-5 Magnum 20, 26 inch plain barrel, Belgium, 6.5 pounds.

Browning A-5 Magnum 20, 26 inch Vent Rib Invector, Miroku Mfg., 8 lbs. 3 oz.

Browning Cynergy Field, O/U, 28 inch barrels, 6-3/4 lbs.

Ithaca M37 Featherlight, 26 inch barrel, 6 lbs. 13 oz.

Remington 870 Wingmaster Classic, 26 inch barrel, 6 lbs., 7 oz.

Weatherby Element Deluxe Walnut, 28 inch barrel, 6 lbs., 7 oz.

For reference, a few 12 gauge examples.

Browning A-5 Light Twelve, Belgium, Vent Rib, Flat Knob, 28 in. fixed Modified, 8 lbs. 3 oz.

Browning Cynergy Euro Field 12 gauge, 28 inch barrels, 7 lbs., 11.5 oz.

Benelli Vinci 12 gauge, 3 inch chamber, 26 inch barrel, 7 lbs. .5 oz.

Browning B-80 12 gauge, steel receiver, 28 inch barrel, 8 lbs. 2 oz.

Remington V3 12 gauge, 26 inch barrel, camo by Black Ice Coatings, 7 lb., 4.5 oz.

Comments:

If you didn't know it already (you probably did), intoxicated marketing departments sometimes lie like rugs when they come up with their catalogs and website claims. Franchi claims their Affinity 20 gauge 26 inch weighs 5.6 lbs. You can't easily write that off to “wood density,” for the stock is plastic.

You might be startled (or amused) to see that a Miroku, made in Japan 26 inch Auto-5 Magnum Twenty weighs as much as a 28 inch A-5 Light Twelve made in Belgium. That, sadly, isn't a typo.

I have a tremendous disdain for nose-heavy unloaded shotguns. If it is nose-heavy unloaded, it can get worse, a lot worse in the field when you actually use it, particularly repeaters. If you are pheasant hunting, you are adding 5 ounces or more of weight in front of the receiver. Way in front of the receiver and of course your payload is right beneath the crimp, the far side of the shell. The second shell in a tubular magazine gets weight even more forward of the receiver than the round in the chamber and the first in the magazine. If you're wondering how that gun you shouldered in the gun shop suddenly became a nose-heavy pig, loading it happened. Or, as Judy Tenuta would say, “It Could Happen.”

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