Introduce Ole Betsy to the group

[FullChoke]

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Team20,

We are a group of turkey hunters, much like many other turkey hunters, who love to pit our woods savvy against an adversary who is supremely equipped with some of the most advanced senses and survival skills that there are instilled in any one animal. What makes us different from the rest of the pack is that we sneak off into the woods carrying a smaller and more carefully considered firearm that was generally relegated to women and kids not too long ago. With major advances in tube/shell/stocks we are now able to fully compete with the bigger guns and have found that it doesn't take a rail car full of shot to shoot the head of the turkey.

We have the option of customizing and tweaking many aspects of our guns to make them better fit our intended uses. There is a lot of fun in doing that. So let's go ahead and show your shooting irons that you will be hunkering behind this season with a description of your components and why you went with this combination.

FC

[Sand Man]

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My current gun started life as a Remington 870 Youth 20ga.  I stripped the gun completely down, took the receiver to a smith to drill/tap/attach rail, polished/deep cleaned barrel, replaced forearm with a synthetic from Remington, installed an adjustable Knoxx stock with a Limbsaver, and a Burris FFII sits on top with a WarBird guard.  I sanded it down, primed, and painted it with multiple stencils and lots of time.  I hand load 1 5/8oz of TSS #9.5s and run it thru a Remington Super Full "lead only" choke.  It will flat stomp turkeys.  Killed a slam with it last year.

Going to the 20ga was simple for me.  I love to run and gun, and if you've never chased a Rio they take "run" to a whole new level.  Having a smaller, lighter, more compact gun has been a god send.  I also hunt with a lot of newbies and kids.  I wanted something I could adjust the stock on to fit them as well as not bruise on the other end when they shot.  This gun does that in spades.  I've currently built 11 guns just like this one for family in friends.  I'm in process of building two more, but Knoxx stopped making the stocks so I'm using Remington's SureShot stock.  When the kids get old enough they will use this gun, and I'll carry the SureShot.

I think it will be super cool for both my kids to kill a slam with it as well.

[FullChoke]

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Several years ago I won an NWTF edition Remington 870 20 gauge shotgun at a banquet. I was perfectly happy with my Browning BPS, although the weight of it was a real hindrance. I wasn't really looking to change guns, but I had been reading reports on this board from hunters who were putting up stunning patterns and piles of dead gobblers next to small piles of spent yellow shells. I decided to go ahead and begin the fun process of Pimping my Ride. I started by drilling the magazine cap and installing hardware for a sling. I also installed a fiber optic open sight on it, put a Primos Jellyhead choke tube and started shooting the new fangled Federal Heavyweight 7's with the Flight Control wad. Opening morning the next year I flipped a longbeard backwards into a ditch at 38 yards with that combo, and as they say, the rest is history.

The next year I deep cleaned the barrel, polished it, drilled and tapped the receiver myself, installed a 336 rail and mounted a Mueller QuickShot red dot sight on it. I fabbed up a cheek riser out of pieces of a neoprene wetsuit and attached it to the stock to help me get up high enough to align my view with the sight. I had that for a year. I also made a paracord sling that just disappears in the woods.



The next off-season was when the real transformation came. I had hand painted shotguns in the past and they turned out really nicely, but I had some other ideas about camouflaging this bad boy. I did a lot of research into military theories of camo and it came down to two schools: make it so that it doesn't stand out in the environment. Most camouflage companies follow this approach. They make camo with random images with no 'correct' orientation. This allows them to be able to sew randomly cut pieces together for clothing that is still effective. The other school is to make the camo look exactly like something already found in nature, that would be accepted as part of the natural environment and not arouse suspicion. Ghillie suits are great examples of this school. This was the one that I wished to develop for the gun. The shape of a shotgun is already very reminiscent of a broken off limb, so I started with that. I don't wish to go into specific details about the process, but I created a custom 3D camouflage on the gun and painted it to the same coloration of a limb about 2 feet off of the ground. It has an additional camo technique known as counter-shading, where the light and dark shading normally found on everything are reversed. This tends to tonally flatten out the object that much more. It all came together in the gun that I now carry to the woods.





I am convinced as to the effectiveness of this project. I had 3 lomgbeards sneak up on my 'wrong' side one morning. I swung the gun a full 90 degrees to my right to get on one of them standing watching that limb move at a distance of 25 yards. He spent the rest of his life wondering how he missed seeing that squirrel.

FC

[3seasons]

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I cut my teeth killing turkeys with 2 Remington 870 Wingmaster 20ga's that my dad gave me then I bought an 870 Express 12ga and used it for years before I tricked it out for turkey hunting shooting 3" NITRO shells. I got hooked on them when my old neighbor gave me a box of 5 when I was going on my first out of state hunt. I killed a bird in MS, 2 in NM and one in TX with that box and that's all I shoot out of it now. I love that gun.  Thumbhole stock and matching forarm, drilled and tapped it, mounted a bushnell trophy with the dot and circle, trigger job, polished the barrel and a preston pittman ported choke that loves anything you push through it but really loves Nitro's. 
 
But then I got to talking to a good friend of mine, that I actually met here, about the new TSS and these 20ga's.  Well I got 5 shells from him and after I shot my first pattern I couldn't believe my eyes so I shot another and I've never looked back. It was a rush putting my gun together the first season but I got it finished right before we took our first big trip. I took my first bird with the new 20 in KS, the next in the mountains of NW Nebraska and my last shell of the 5 was fired on a mountain side in the South Dakota black hills.

 
My little 20 is a Remington 870 youth that I had dipped in something I thought blended pretty good. Put an ATI stock and a new Reminton Shurshot forearm.  I drilled and tapped it and put a FF3 and it now has a warbird guard(not in pic) I did a nice trigger job on it so its nice and smooth and light. Polished my barrel and shoot a Rem Super Full choke that is unreal with TSS hand loads that a really good friend loads for me.


 

[FullChoke]

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I believe that applying a bark camo image to the gun so that the pattern runs the length of the gun and not perpendicular to it helps make it that much more effective. Did you dip that yourself or have it done?

[3seasons]

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Thanks. Yours looks awesome too  as does Russ's tracked up gun, I've seen it in person and it's legit.
A friend of mine owns a hydrodiping business so I had him do it.

[cramerhunts]

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My daughter's and mine. I had so much fun shooting hers I just had to build one for myself.




870 youths, hers has jelly head choke and mine has a hevi-shot, both have truglo gobble stoppers, claw slings, and b-square mounts. So far so good and hopefully they get to chalk up a few more kills this spring!

[FullChoke]

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Nice Father/daughter set of guns there.

The family that preys together, stays together.

Cheers 

FC

[xarcher]

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Plain old Remy 1187 and her carriage