So:
The day was pretty gray & misty. Didn’t get to run as much as I wanted…although, my shoulder said it was plenty.
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It was just me, so…there’s not as many pics; it was a bit of a pain to take my gloves off every time I wanted to take a pic. Also, since weather didn’t look that great, I only ran 5 rounds of most of the loads.
I started off with Federal Tactical Flite Control 00; 9 pellet, 1350fps max load. Loaded 5 in the tube, and…the first round hung up, wouldn’t hit the lifter. A bit inauspicious…I depressed it slightly, and felt it pop back against my finger. Hit the loading switch, and it fed. Ran all 5, no issues.
Next, the Fiocchi 00; 9 pellet, 1250 fps. No loading issues, and they ran fine as well, although definitely did not eject as aggressively as the Federal…
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Blue hills: Fiocchi, red hulls: Federal
On to Winchester Ranger low recoil 00; 9 pellet, unknown velocity (not printed on box). Ran perfectly. I kinda expected an issue with this load, but was pleasantly surprised when it didn’t choke.
Hornady Black 8 pellet, 1600fps 00. Holy sh(o)t!!! This is hot stuff, folks. Massive muzzle flash, magnum-level recoil, and kicked the hulls a good 8-10 feet. Ran fine, though.
Winchester Defender 9 pellet 00, 1145fps. Another one I thought there might be issues with. There weren’t.
Remington 0 12 pellet, 1275fps. Hotter than I expected; serious kick, threw the shells further than the Hornady. No issues.
And…Winchester 3” magnum 15 pellet, 1210fps 00. Threw the hulls into the next county. Magnum recoil. Ran perfectly.
On to slugs, as it was at this point I discovers I forgot the trap/bird loads. Crap on a crap flavored cracker.
I ran Federal Truball 1oz low recoil, Winchester Defender 1oz slug+3 pellet 00, and Sterling Tornado slugs. All ran great; the TruBall rang the 25yd gong 5 out of 5 shots; the Sterling was all over the place.
And, some goofing around…Federal Mini #4 buck. No way this runs, and I was MOSTLY right. Loaded one round in the spout, and two more in the tube, and…failure, as expected.
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Failed to eject, and two rounds jammed on the lifter.
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I was able to force the forward shell back into the magazine and get it to feed the round, fired again, expecting another FTE…but, nope. It ejected, and fed the round in the tube. Tried it again, put one mini in the chamber, dropped the bolt, put one mini in the mag…it ejected the first round, fed the second (but didn’t eject the second round). I was more than just a little surprised.
Then ran a bunch more of the Fiocchi, to see why doesn’t like it; figured I’d video it, so I one-handed, action-hero’d the magazine…nope. Failure to feed. However…this shouldn’t come as a surprise, since a LOT of semi-autos won’t feed reliably unless firmly shouldered/held. Cleared it, shoulders it, dumped the mag. Reloaded, ran 5 as fast as I could.
I’ll have to figure out a way to upload the video…can’t do it directly from my phone, I guess.
So, there you have it. I was expecting more than a few failures, but…it seems the AKSA S4–at least MY s4–is solid. Is it “as good as” a Benelli? Nope. I still believe that one is rolling the dice when they get one of these, where the Benelli will be an almost sure bet.
But sometimes when you gamble—you win.
