Another youth shotgun question

[Big Dave2]

I want to buy my 11 year old son a 20 ga. shotgun with bird and slug barrel for christmas. He has been shooting a .410/.22 Rossi combo for the last couple of years but he wants to get a bit more serious and turkey hunt next spring.

I am set on buying a 20 ga., probably a Remington 870 or Mossberg pump but my question is whether or not to get a "youth" model or not. He is of average size for his age, almost 5' tall about 90 lbs. I think his arms will be too short for an adult size gun but I don't know for how long. I don't want to get one and have it be too small in a year or 2, but I also want him to be able to use it this spring.

I'm not sure if one option would be to buy a full size gun and replace the stock with a shorter one? Buy a youth size gun with the intention of replacing it in a couple of years?

When do you find that your son/daughter has outgrown thier youth model shotguns? Maybe he would use it longer than I think?

[Froggy4371]

Easiest thing I found was to have my son shoulder my 12 guage and see how it fit and then decide. A youth stock will be quite a bit shorter and I am guessing that an adult 20 guage will fit him fine. Just make an excuse for him to shoulder your gun.

Froggy

[klee]

I'm a lady and I started out with a mossberg 20ga pump youth with the deer and bird barrel. It was a good starter gun for me. I would prefer that over a remington. Remington was too heavy for me, i can't imagine carrying a remington in the field all day. The mossberg does come with one or two extra butt pads that could be added as extensions if its too short. I never used my extensions because i like to have control over the gun. I don't know if they make a deer barrel for one of remingtons gas operated guns. I like that one because there was barely any recoil. But for shooting trap, the barrel was heavy for me.

[Hookmaster]

I bought my son a Mossberg youth 20. He used it from 11-14. Probably a little small at 14 but there wasn't time for him to get used to a 12 guage before the season. You can replace the youth stock and fore end with full size ones so it becomes an adult sized 20 gauge. If I had to do it again I would get a Benelli Nova youth 20, much easier to pump but I liked the Mossbergs safety on the tang.

[PurpleFloyd]

Hi Dave.

I am going to offer a little different option. When my son was nine two years ago I was going to buy him either a Mossy pump like you are looking at or a Benelli Nova but then when we went to Gander I came across the Mossberg SA20 youth shotgun. It was a little more than the Nova and it doesn't have a slug barrel that I know of but that little auto loader is a heck of a gun for a young guy to move up to and as he gets older they do have an adult stock that can be put on it to fit an adult pull.

The gun is so light and easy to point and kicks so softly that he has been unstoppable with it whether we are hunting pheasants, Turkey or deer. While it doesn't have a rifled barrel he got one deer with it last year and this year too. Just something to consider.

[gurkster]

I would get him a gun that fits him at the time he is going to use it. You can always sell the youth gun, they hold there value well (so you may lose a few bucks, but not the whole cost). Do you have other kids that you can pass the youth gun to? If you go to a smaller shop they may allow you trade it in towards the purchase of an adult size gun in a couple years too. I wound not try to have him shoot a gun that is to big for him just to save a few bucks. Great job on getting him out there!!

[SmilinBob]

I would advise to get the full size gun, and then for about the price of cutting the stock and replacing the recoil pad you can get a synthetic youth stock and use it until he outgrows it. When he is done growing he will still have a new, full size stock to have fit to him and will match the gun perfectly. I see this scenario in the shop all the time and it makes the most sense for this situation. The youth stock can either be handed down again, or sold for little loss in the long run too. Gun fit is an important factor too often overlooked for new shooters, if the gun doesn't fit, you will never adapt to it as easily as having a gun adapted to you.

[brittman]

Mossberg quality is not good. The scattergun / deer barrel special is nice idea for their youth model, but the quality was just poor. Had it, shot it, sold it.

Remington youth model is a solid gun. The smaller 20gauge youth model can be traded in, handed down or kept as a nice grouse woods gun.

The Browning micro BPS is a great youth gun. It throws the empty downwards instead of out the side and is a great gun for youth that shoot southpaw.

[Big Dave2]

Mossberg quality is not good. The scattergun / deer barrel special is nice idea for their youth model, but the quality was just poor. Had it, shot it, sold it.

Remington youth model is a solid gun. The smaller 20gauge youth model can be traded in, handed down or kept as a nice grouse woods gun.

The Browning micro BPS is a great youth gun. It throws the empty downwards instead of out the side and is a great gun for youth that shoot southpaw.

That reminds me that the other equation to this is he is a lefty and left eye dominant so that is why we have stuck with single shots so far.

[DaveT]

Big Dave

If you get the Mossberg make sure your kid can push the safety on and off. The one I bought for my kids was easy to push off of safe, but neither of them had the strength to put it back on. Part of that was because it's located right under the scope, but the main reason was it's really stiff. Had to put a butter knife in the kid's pack so he could lever it back on to safe.

Also if you're going to run slugs through it I'd go with an auto to help absorb some recoil. Just my 2 cents.

[Tom7227]

My 2 cents. Buy a separate stock so you can change it out when it's time. As for the kick with a slug - I can barely handle it. Don't know what you can do for a youth. An auto makes it less likely to kick badly but the cost probably will be prohibitive.

[PurpleFloyd]

The SA20 youth that I bought for my son does a great job of reducing the recoil from slugs and Turkey loads. The fit and finish of that gun is also far superior to the youth Remington 11-87. To be honest it is just about as tight and smooth as my Beretta Extrema II.

[Big Dave2]

Thanks for all the input. I think I will end up getting him a youth model 20 ga. of either remington or mossberg. I just don't want to spend a lot of money on something that will be obsolete in a couple of years.

[MJ1657]

I got my eleven year old hunting partner the Mossberg youth combo. It came with a butt stock extension, two different sized recoil pads and a coupon for 50% off an adult stock and forearm.

We put the stock extension in already but she is tall for her age. I put a scope on it and she has not had trouble with the safety but it is a tight fit.

She was very worried about recoil with slugs. I had her shoot it in my weighted lead sled rest and didn't say anything about it taking the recoil out of shooting it. It built her confidence and she was not at all concerned about the recoil after that. She shot it three times at deer and remarked when she was done that she didn't even feel it.