I am trying to decide on a fowl gun that I can shoot 3" + shells that will handle steel shot. I would like a less expensive auto gun.
The ones that I see that I like so far are the stoeger 2000 and the Remington Spr453?
Who uses these guns for puddle birds? What problems have you had with your gun? would you buy another one?

I shoot an SP10 Rem. 10ga but I have a buddy that shoots a charles daly and it seems like a great gun has not jammed this year and will eject super x 7 1/2s dove loads he payed around 400 for it

nova... cheap and will last a lifetime

Novas are great guns i own two of them i just recently puchased the 10ga but an auto gun i think a daly is the best inexpensive auto gun

I have the Remington and it took 100 rounds to break it in. I was a little nervous, but the last time at the range I went through a box of Winchester Xpert 3" 1400FPS and it never missed a beat.

The last box was after I put 100 rounds through the gun first. I started with heavy dove load, and it just wouldn't cycle well at all. Moved up to 3.5" steel, and it had trouble throwning the shell. Moved down to some 3" steel, about 40 shells throught the gun at this point, and it would cycle two shells, but not the third. I had to go to the range twice, to get all 100 rounds through the gun.

My third trip, I brought the winchester it fired like the youtube video. I have not gotten back to the field with it, so I'll have to get back to you after this coming weekend.

M2000 was the other gun I was considering. It feels great and shoots well. My problem was that I know two people that had problems out of the box. Treebass being one of them. He had to ship the gun back for repair. Since getting it back, he swears by it. DevilDawg is the other person I know and it took a couple of trips back for repair. I have not spoken to him this season to see how it has worked for him. If you do some searches, you will find what I did. It seems that 50% of them come out of the box with out issue and people swear by them.

The deciding factor on the Remington was not finding anything bad about the gun.

Goodluck

Charles Daly is what I have had for 6 years. Shoots 3.5" and high brass 2 3/4 shells fine. Cheap dove loads will give me problems. It has been a really good gun for Turkey and Waterfowl and with high brass dove loads.

You really do get what you pay for with semiautos. The cheaper ones will work but they may be picky about what shells they use and require some work in the beginning to get them going.

OF all the cheap semiauto's I'd go with the Remington SPR453. There are several people on here that have had one and they have all worked well. It's no SBE or Extrema but for the money they are hard to beat.

I dont know about the SPR, But I have an 1187. Definatly stay away from that gun.

Yeah I'm not too fond of the 1187 either..but the 453 is really made by Baikal. It's just the Baikal MP153 but with the Remington name on it. Not sure if any changes have been made now that the Remington name is on it.

Honestly if I were you I'd skip the low end semi autos and look at the SBEII, Extrema II and maybe a few others. A good shotgun will last all your life and why dick around with one you think will be fine for now when you really want something else. At this point you probably don't really know what you want but after you do some research it will become more clear.

I have several other shotguns that I use for specific purpose. While I would like to have an SBEII I don't have a budget that would support a purchase like that. This shotgun will be used just for puddle birds, So we're talking a couple of weekends a year. I just don't have a gun that handles steel shot or 3". I might take a look at the Chuck Daily.

If you have the money, but an xtrema 2. I saved during the summer and bought one and it hasen't jammed once. From light skeet loads, to 3 1/2s, its perfect.

Baikal MP153/SPR453

I have 3 of them.

What is the difference in the Urika 2 and the Exstrema 2??? Just the fact that Urika doesn't shoot 3.5s???

I have an M2000 and have had very little issues with it. Most problems were with bad crimps on reloads. Then a bad batch of shells that was messing with mine and a Browning and a Mossberg. Other than that it has been flawless. I was thinking about the Rem, but after seeing the barrel of an 1187 fly off I don't know. The Mossberg 835/935 is hard to beat price wise. I can run anything through my 835 and it keeps going. After 10yrs I have had 1 problem with it and that was just the spring in the tube got mangled by the plug. 2 minutes later all was good and working again. The bad thing about the 835/935 is it's just dang long. Best as a goose gun.

I don't regret purchasing the M2000 at all. Actually retired my old 1100 after I got it.