O/U Advice which one?

[rainydays]

I have a Beretta 686, it is lightweight and I like it alot. The one downside I have with this shotgun, and this could apply to others also, is that when it gets used in really cold weather and you are really gloved up, the tang safety is very hard to get off. At this point, I have to go back and drag out the old 870. The cross-bolt safety can easily be used with heavy gloves on.
Much luck with your selection.

[fabsroman]

Originally Posted by rainydays

I have a Beretta 686, it is lightweight and I like it alot. The one downside I have with this shotgun, and this could apply to others also, is that when it gets used in really cold weather and you are really gloved up, the tang safety is very hard to get off. At this point, I have to go back and drag out the old 870. The cross-bolt safety can easily be used with heavy gloves on.
Much luck with your selection.

You just have to use the gun a lot more (i.e., slide the safety on and off a couple thousand times) and the safety requires less and less work to work it. That is also one of the reasons I like the target models in lieu of the field models. The 686 I have is a sporting clays version so it does not have the automatic safety. Once I put the safety in the off position, it stays there until I put it back in the on position.

[dovehunter]

Most of my doubles - both SxS and O/U - have manual safeties and none are target models. In fact, between my son and I, the only doubles of either persuasion we have with automatic safeties are a couple of Stevens model 311. You are right though, at least based on our guns, that many doubles of either persuasion have stiff safeties until you have worked them several thousand times.