Did I get bad advice?

C

COHunter

New member
Recently I bought a used SKB O/U for the upcoming year. I had not fired my old 870 in 20 years and on breaking it down found it to be pitted and in poor condition. Asking around I got the overwhelming opinion that an older, higher quality shotgun like Browning, Beneli and SKB would be a better choice to any new lower cost shotgun aka Stoeger, Savage, Mossberg and others. I do like my SKB and it fires/patterns well, however this past weekend I got a double fire wail running through 50 rounds of trap.
 
Oh, and I found out after I got the shotgun that I can not shoot steal out of it. Something of a downside since I wanted to hunt Turkey too.
 
Well, the double fire could easily come from it just having a dirty trigger group. You would need to remove the butt stock to clean it. I use a gun solvent and a fine tooth brush and gently clean any and all parts. Then light oil it, I blow off any excess with a little compressed air, being careful to not use too much air pressure so not to blow parts all over the place. Removing the stock is as far as you should dissemble it. If the gun continues to double on you. I would suggest taking it to a gunsmith ASAP.

I understand your fixed choke problem. I have several older quality guns I can't fire steel through myself. If turkey hunting is the only steel shot requirement you have. That's not so bad. You can get several alternative non toxic loads that will work in your fixed choke gun. It's not like you would shoot a ton of shells for turkey hunting. SKB makes a very good quality gun. This is hopefully just a dirty gun issue. Best of luck
 
Like onpoint said. If your only requirement for non-tox is turkey I would rercommend one of the Tungsten Matrix loads from Kent. They make both a 3" Turkey load and Waterfowl loads. They are not cheap ($3 per round) but with turkey hunting you are not shooting very many rounds so this would be a good alternative. Here's the links to the Kent shells.

http://www.kentgamebore.com/tungsten_matrix_high_performance.asp

http://www.kentgamebore.com/tungsten_matrix_waterfowl.asp

Or, if you want to spend more money you could have some choke tubes installed in the SKB and then you would have choke selection and be able to shoot anything through it including steel. The SKB's are very good guns. If I was you I would take it to a competent gunsmith and have the double fire problem looked at. Again, onpoint is probably right in that it's only a matter of a a good cleaning to fix the problem. But I would get it fixed before I shot it again because it is a safety issue.
 
I believe the SKB triggers, at least the ones I have owned are mechanical not inertia. It is unlikely that fouling will inable a mechanical trigger without some other issue. inertia triggers, ( Browning superposed et al) can be touchy. Check your trigger pulls with a gauge, there can be a vast difference in pull pressure. I have seen triggers from 2.5#'s to 11#'s!!!, First pull should be around 4# to release, second trigger should be about 4.5#'s to eliminate doubling in a mechanical trigger, and recoil doubling in an inertia gun. many times doubling is a user error, in which the shooter,usually using gloves, doesn't fully release the trigger upon firing the first shot, in this situation any slight rearward pressure on certain triggers will allow recoil to fire the second shot. If your gun fired both simultaneously, there is an issue with your barrel selector, either it was in no mans land,not fully to left or right, or it is not functioning properly due to wear. Third possibility is a worn sear. In any case SKB especially of the early vintage,the Ithaca guns, and shortly after have an excellent reputation and were ahead of their time. It can be fixed, and is well worth it. Any gun of it's class new will cost several thousand more. today.
 
COHunter said:
Recently I bought a used SKB O/U for the upcoming year. I had not fired my old 870 in 20 years and on breaking it down found it to be pitted and in poor condition. Asking around I got the overwhelming opinion that an older, higher quality shotgun like Browning, Beneli and SKB would be a better choice to any new lower cost shotgun aka Stoeger, Savage, Mossberg and others. I do like my SKB and it fires/patterns well, however this past weekend I got a double fire wail running through 50 rounds of trap.
Click to expand...

What model SKB do you have?
 
Inertia Trigger

I have two SKB Shotguns. One is an SKB/Ithaca 200E 20ga. SxS, the other is a SKB/Ithaca 20 ga. 600 OU. Both have inertia triggers. So, a clean up should help. There is another possibility, you may have pressed the trigger twice without noticing it. It happens. As to your 870. Unless it is really really bad, it should work fine after a cleanup.

Lock and Load! :D
 
I was wrong and I then I was right. I stand corrected that the larger gauge SKB's most 12's and 20's have inertia triggers, Small gauges have mechanical triggers. After some research I found a great many complaints of barrelled sets of 12-20-28-410 built on inertia trigger actions which were not reliable at setting the second barrel with low recoil ammo. New model SKB's are I believe mechanical triggers, but still suspect for inadvertent doubling from slight second trigger pull upon the first shot. So train yourself to release the trigger completely prior to the second shot, and have your trigger pull looked at by a professional. It's one of the most common unaddressed problems resulting in poor shooting as well.
 
I have one of the last SKB built Weatherby Athena's. It has inertia triggers. I had two other SKB weatherby's, one 12, one 20, both had inertia triggers.

By the way, SKB is out of business.
 
From what I've been able to find it looks to be a model 500, I have ordered a few firing pins in case of scarcity and will take the butt off this weekend to clean as recommended. Thank you all for your recommendation and suggestions.

The steel shot was one of my biggest concerns (other then the malfunction I experienced), thank you for the shoot recommendations also.
 
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