Santa brought my 10 year old a Charles Daly 601 compact 20 gauge.
I was shopping for a compact (youth) 20 gauge with 22-24" barrel preferably with full camo. I had narrowed the choices down to Tristar Raptor, Escort PS20 youth and Mossberg Sa20 Bantam.
I have a SA 20 Turkey with the 22" bbl and really like the gun. The SA 20 has a 24" bbl and we can only get it in black synthetic. We have handled the Tristar Raptor a few times at Walmart, it's $348 new. I couldn't find an Escort in stock anywhere before Christmas. A very large retailer near us seems to be the only shop that has the older Charles Daly (full camo) in stock. It was $360 out the door.
The first shells we put into the gun were some Herters target loads, 7/8 ounce at 1200 fps. I wasn't expecting them to cycle a brand new gun, so I was surprised when the first 6 ran like a sewing machine.The next few would not fire and the primers had light strikes. Examining the shells, the primers do seem to be set deep. Those shells with light strikes were later put in my Mossberg 500 and they fired.
Finding 20 ga ammo near me is almost impossible, but I did get some Federal 7/8 ounce 1200 fps loads and Bass Pro had some 3" steel 2 shot. The gun cycled the 3" and the Federals flawlessly. To date we have almost 500 rounds of Federal and Winchester through the gun. We have done a few shots on paper with it just to show my little guy what the pattern was like with his modified choke. He is doing pretty well shooting skeet with the gun.
The receiver has a 3/8 dovetail so I ordered the picatinny base mount for it to mount a red dot for turkey season.
I have some 9 shot TSS on order to hand load and test some chokes. For my little guy I want a uniform pattern, but not super tight. I don't anticipate that being hard to achieve.
I was initially reluctant to buy the Charles Daly- the name scared me off. I am very pleased with the purchase and how the gun shoots. My little guy really loves the gun and it fits him well. I'm anxious to try it with some turkey tss, but it gets weekly use busting clays. I think this little gun is a great budget gun, I definitely recommend for anyone seeking a youth 20.
