Duggan

Yes, I consider an animal that does not attack me and does not have means of defense, defenseless. They freeze in headlights, they stand still sometimes when you shoot at them, and they are just not very smart. I work with plenty of hunters, and they all say the same thing. He-ll, I've been on the skeet range blasting away, and deer have walked out of the woods 75-100 yards away and started to eat the grass on the range field. Tell me these animals are smart. I've had my crosshairs on plenty of deer, but see no point in repeatedly killing something that is of no value to me. But I could care less about deer. I see them all the time, they are a problem in this area, and if I wanted to kill them, I easily could. I don't see the thrill in killing something that isn't exotic or dangerous. I especially don't see the thrill in wasting a whole day sitting in a treestand waiting for some dumb animal to come bumbling along so I can gun it down. If I was to hunt, I'd want to actively track and stalk things, not sit around waiting for some foolish deer to walk beneath my treestand. I don't expect a forum full of hunters to agree with me, but that's where I stand. The only reason I'd want to kill a deer would be to out of annoyance, or if I wanted to eat it for some reason. Dove or bird hunting, I totally understand, and would love to do. As I understand it, you have to actually move along and always be ready for things to fly out of the brush. You're not sitting stationary for 5 hours waiting for something to come to you. The thought of deer "hunting" puts me to sleep. Hardly relevant to this thread, or my post at large.

I think you've come to a good conclusion. If I was going to buy a pump benelli, I'd get the same gun you are looking to get. Stick around the forums, let us know how it turns out and how you like it.

It's not that far from the truth. It's pretty ridiculous.

NOW BEHOLD THE MODERN RIFLED SLUG Image host Hey look, these slugs have rifling on them! It's almost like they were designed specifically for smoothbore barrels that would otherwise have no way to get the slug spinning! Now in case even this is too much thinking for you to do, let me break it down even further Rifled Barrel + Smooth Sabot Slug = Win, best performance at longer ranges Rifled Barrel + Rifled slug = I'm not sure, I've never tried it ... can't imagine it would be great. Smooth Barrel + Rifled Slug = Best option for smooth bore shotguns, as the rifling on the slug helps stabilize the slug and now what you suggested Smooth Barrel + Smooth SABOT Slug = Fail. No real way to get the round spinning, thus no real way to retain accuracy at any type of distance at all. You're spending 3x the price of rifled slugs for no improvement or a detrimental change in accuracy, not to mention less terminal ballistics due to little spin. But why didn't you know all this, mr big hunter man? Hasn't all of your "one shot on kill" animal killing taught you anything about the design of the firearm you're shooting? Of course it hasn't. That being said, sabots WILL provide better range and terminal ballistics if they are fired FROM A RIFLED BARREL as they are designed to be. Firing them from a SMOOTHBORE barrel will provide neither, which is what YOU told him to do, and are now defending like a fool. Maybe you should learn what you are talking about and do some testing yourself before you start telling other people what to do. edit: and I was just teasing him about his optic from what he has posted in another thread. I never said "HEY NIKO YOU NEED A 600 DOLLAR RED DOT TO HIT STUFF AT 50 YARDS. He came into the thread and said "I DUNNO WHY ANYONE WOULD EVER SPEND SO MUCH MONEY ON A SCOPE". Big difference. edit2: I'm not telling anyone what to do with their guns. If you enjoy doing something, by all means, do it. But when someone makes a thread asking how to improve something, don't give advice that will only worsen the original posters problems. You're only spreading misinformation and not helping anyone. Carry on. Serious Business.

I'm going to try and keep this short, but plain and simple you are being stupid, have 0 reading comprehension, and clearly have no idea how slugs work or what their design is. I never said anything about the terminal ballistics of sabots vs rifled slugs, nor did I say anything about shooting deer or killing with one shot. I did not offer any advice at all about hunting, you are completely fabricating this. I could care less about domestic hunting quite frankly. Deer hunting seems like just about the most boring prospect on the face of the earth to me. NY is absolutely overrun with deer, I see multiple deer daily in fields or almost getting hit on the roads. If I wanted to kill a deer, I could just sit on my deck any given morning and wait for a herd of them to come into my yard by my pond. Would killing a bunch of dumb defenseless animals give me reason or authority to talk about accuracy? He,ll no, but you seem to think it does for some reason. What animal you are shooting, or how many animals you have bagged has absolutely no relevance to this thread about ACCURACY. I care about weapon handling, reliability and ACCURACY, which is what this topic is about. He asked about ACCURACY, I RESPONDED ABOUT ACCURACY. SABOT SLUGS WILL NOT BE MORE ACCURATE THAN RIFLED SLUGS IN A SMOOTHBORE BARREL. The entire point of a sabot is to spin when fired out of a RIFLED BARREL, WHICH IS WHAT GIVES IT BETTER TERMINAL BALLISTICS AND ACCURACY AT LONG RANGE. If you are shooting sabot slugs out of a smoothbore barrel, you are gimping yourself. The rifling on rifled slugs is not very much, but it is enough that it will stabilize the slug a bit and give it an edge over sabots IN A SMOOTHBORE BARREL. oh, I didn't even see these quotes of genius where you contradict yourself: "MOST hunters and shooters know that each gun shoots differently, so the way your M4 shoots sabot's means absolutely nothing to me, or to someone shooting a smoothbore Supernova" Oh really? You don't think there are any parallels between 2 smoothbore barrels from the same manufacturer? DID YOU EVEN KNOW THE M4 IS A SMOOTHBORE? DO YOU REALIZE THE RIFLING ON THE BORE IS LARGELY WHAT MAKES GUNS SHOOT DIFFERENTLY? AND THAT SMOOTH SHOTGUNS HAVE NO RIFLING ON THE BORE? Good logic. "(and by the way... don't you know that your supposed to shoot rifled slugs through a smoothbore?). " Yes I obviously know that! I've been saying that from the beginning. YOU DO REALIZE THAT SABOTS ARE NOT RIFLED SLUGS RIGHT? AND THAT YOU TOLD HIM TO SHOOT SABOTS? YOU DO REALIZE THAT RIFLED SLUGS AND RIFLED BARRELS ARE 2 DIFFERENT THINGS RIGHT? Take me to school, what a laugh ... How about I take you to school since you clearly have no idea what you are talking about, mr "I think sabot slugs have rifling on them". BEHOLD THE MODERN SABOT SLUG: Free Image Host Free Image Hosting Hey look, there's no rifling! Know why? Because it's meant to be fired out of a RIFLED BARREL, not a smoothbore barrel! WHEN FIRED OUT OF A SMOOTHBORE BARREL THERE IS NOTHING TO START THE ROUND SPINNING, THUS NOTHING TO RETAIN ACCURACY AT RANGE OR TO INCREASE TERMINAL BALLISTICS! GOD THIS LOGIC STUFF IS HARD.

You use it with the fixed stock? It's low enough to use without really altering your cheek weld?

It's a "brake choke". I forget who makes them. I always cracked up when he posted pics of the bottom one, the one with the bi pod on it

In response to m2slugger, the guy with slugger in his name who apparently doesn't realize that sabot slugs are meant for rifled slug barrels: Yes, I've shot sabot slugs through my m4, as well as just about every other type of shell you can imagine. I see absolutely no reason to pay 3x the price of rifled slugs for sabot slugs when they offer 0 or negative return in accuracy in a smoothbore barrel. Do you enjoy paying more money to shoot looser groups? The last time I bothered to shoot slugs comparatively through my m4 was last year. I had 3 types of rifled slugs, 3 types of sabot slugs, my m4 with a cyl choke and an ACOG mounted for the test, a bench, and a target at 50 yards. My results? The 3 rifled slugs all had pretty much the same pattern, a hefty fist sized group more or less. One of the sabots was almost as good as these 3, and the other 2 were noticably looser in pattern, on the edge of the paper sometimes. I don't remember which brands/models, as this was last summer and I really don't care about slugs. So I have to ask, have YOU ever tried shooting sabots through a smoothbore? Or do you like to just give bad advice to people? You ask why I reply when I don't have anything good to offer, yet you're telling a new guy to spend $15+/5round box on slugs not made for his weapon that will shoot worse than the $6/box slugs that were. It's laughable. Quantity more than quality ... I don't even know what you are talking about. Are you suggesting that because I don't hunt, that I somehow don't know how to shoot, or know about my weapon and how it works? What do you think, I just load up my weapon with random stuff and blast away with my eyes closed in any given direction while saying the lords name in vain? Only old man m1014 does that.

Almost 100 now. I dunno what I paid. Not that much.

I blame your inferior red dot scope. And why would you put sabot's through a smoothbore if regular slugs aren't working well?

bayonets are serious business.

http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/store/productdetail.aspx?p=1683&st=CLP&s= Breakfree CLP. There are other products that are CLP's, but when someone says CLP they generally are referring to breakfree. It's a single item that does all 3 jobs pretty well, thus the appeal. I bought a gallon of it a few years ago, I've used about half of that gallon so far

A stock m4 and a stock supernova tactical both weigh 7.8 lbs They have the same overall length and length of pull. I don't know if the m3 comes with an available "steadygrip" pistol grip. I disqualified it from my list of choices to give because I didn't think it had one. But between the supernova and m4 ... I'd imagine the supernova would recoil harder due to being pump and not having a gas system, but it's been a long time since I shot a supernova. I personally don't really like the benelli pump hand guard that much, but I'm used to 870s for pump guns. Concerning the m4 and its reliability ... you're right, it's not AS reliable as a pump. It jams sometimes during the first 200 break in rounds, some people are having issues with the magazine spring not ejecting rounds fully when they switch to a full length tube ... But if you shoot through the break in period, and switch to a stronger spring (apparently the m1 spring solves all issues anyone has had) if you happen to get one of the freak units that won't work in a 7 round tube ... you shouldn't have any problems. You can also still rack the unit, it's quite loud and a great sound. Accidental discharge is not really worth talking about, it doesn't happen unless you're to blame. I say all this just to give a fair representation of the two. But realize I also say this as a guy who now has 11k rounds or so through his m4, never replaced any factory part, never had a fail to fire, accidental discharge, jam after the first 200, or any type of malfunction. The only problems I've ever had were when I replaced a factory bolt handle with an aftermarket one, and I bent the **** out of it because it couldn't keep up with how I abused it. I replaced that one with a titanium one and haven't had a problem since. I have 100% faith in my m4 ... I just don't want to give you the impression that there are 0.0000 problems with the m4s reliability ... when it's really more like 0.001 problems reported over the months from select users (and may or may not be user error) that are completely solvable should they happen to arise. If you somehow can, I'd say to shoot an m4 prior to buying to see if you like the way it handles. It's a great shotgun, but it may or may not be for you. edit - I'd also venture to say that you are much more likely to short stroke a pump under stress than the m4 is to malfunction. edit2 - I forgot that the supernova also has some comfortech stuff ... so it may not recoil that much more. It's been too long since I've shot a supernova to give you a real answer.

Since you said you handled an m4, I'll assume when you say "pistol grip", you mean an a protruding grip below the stock like an m4, not a "pistol grip" which is the bent stock that they almost all have. It's annoying and people constantly mix up the terminology, but I think that is what you mean. That being the case, what you want is a supernova tactical, or a supernova w/ steadygrip ... not sure what the difference is. The regular nova does not offer a pistol grip, unless they have changed their models since I last did my research. http://www.benelliusa.com/firearms/specialPurpose.tpl I have to ask though ... why do you want a pump if you liked the way the m4 feels so much? Is it the cost? Do you not have faith/experience in autoloading guns or their reliability? Do you want to be able to rack the weapon to scare the person? I'm just curious because it's not very often that I hear of people who get to handle an m4 ... who then decide they want a pump gun.

"Cleaning" an already clean, unfired bore won't do anything. You want to lubricate. Put a little clp on the bolt carrier, the bolt sides and the inside of the receiver. Some people, myself included, have put some clp down the recoil tube to lube that a bit. It smooths out the action. There is no need to lube the bore, but it can't hurt. You want it to be slick, but not dripping or pooling. It will burn off as you shoot if you lube too much, or spray out the side. It's not NEEDED necessarily, but whenever possible you want to be dealing with oiled metal parts, not dry metal on dry metal. After firing, you then clean/lube/soak in clp. The finish on the m4 is decent, but it can still rust if you don't soak it in clp or better from time to time. By soak, I mean clean your m4 fully, cover all parts interior/exterior in clp, wipe off excess, then leave soaking. Congrats on your new purchase, you're going to love it.

Also, you say an eotech is like "looking through a cylinder" ... which makes me beleive you've never used an eotech, as they are the ultimate both eyes open fast target acquisition sight. There is nothing cylinder about them. It doesn't have a round tube like an aimpoint, it's a flat clear window that projects a hologram. They are just a little big/high for m4 use without a collapsible stock.

^^that's an irondot, and I don't beleive it will cowitness. The m4 sights are really low, I don't think any optic is going to be low enough to cowitness, and certainly not true cowitness ... maybe lower 1/3, but I have yet to hear reports of anything being low enough for even that.

Any choke can be used with slugs, but at further distances you will have better accuracy with a looser choke. About 5% of what I shoot is slugs. I therefore do not care about my full choke affecting the accuracy of slugs at long range, when I would be using a rifle anyways.

"Duncan" commented on liking the lack of a "real safety", not a "real trigger". By real safety, I mean one that has to be turned off prior to pulling the trigger, not one that automatically turns off when the trigger is pulled.

I'm buying a glock specifically because it has no real safety. If nobody else is touching your weapon, and there's no round in the chamber, there's no reason for the safety to be on. YMMV. Safeties work for most people ... I never use mine unless I have a round in the chamber. Personally, I don't leave my m4 loaded. I leave it in my closet, against the wall, bolt back, safety off. I have loose shells lined up on the shelf above it in my closet. I can grab my gun, throw a shell in and close the bolt in like 2 seconds. If I lived by myself I'd keep it loaded. Like I said, it changes based on your living situation.

There are lots of viable optics, eotechs/aimpoints if you use the collapsible stock for cheek weld issues, irondots and the mini aimpoint for full length stocks, or whatever you can find. For lights, you either have to get a rail from BT/surefire (both of which have problems) and then put a scoutlight or whatever on it, or you can get a tube clamp light/rail and go that route. I haven't seen any pictures of military m4s having lights on them.

They used to come with 3-4. It seemed to be a crapshoot ... either benelli wouldn't send the chokes they were supposed to, or dealers wouldn't include them. Now I hear reports that benelli only ships with one choke officially, which I would guess is a modified choke.

Very nice setup. Fixed stock + full length tube is the way to go. Welcome to the m4 club.

If you don't have any kids, I'd say to leave the tube loaded and the safety off. I think the safety is in a natural position, but you may very well forget it if you're stressed. I don't leave a round in the chamber, but I sometimes have rounds in the tube/on the lifter. I never leave the gun with the safety on. It's personal preference, and depends on who else has access to your stuff.

http://www.mesatactical.com/index.php?id=60 But I would advise against using a 1 point sling with a large heavy weapon like the m4.