I have the Pedersoli 20b and the “matching” 12b. Until this weekend I had never sit there 12. My son and I went to our bird club and have both a good workout. The 20b has fixed choke marked IC/M and has browned barrels. The 12b has screw in chokes and blue barrels. The barrels on the 12 are 1-longer than the 20s. The 12 is slightly muzzle heavy and the 20 is very balanced between the hands. It hard to measure choke with a short choke gauge because the bored are actually 19 and 13 respectively. A long shaft dial caliper in needed to determine the real constriction between bore and choke. So I set up the 12 with what equates to the same constrictions as the 20 respectively. We used “square” loads and shot each barrel 3x at a patterning board, then shot 10 clay targets launched from the same position, and ended the day with an actual bird hunt. Using 7/8 ounce of shot, the 12 had a more random, spread pattern than the same load in the 20 in spite of the same choke. Moving to 1-ounce, both shotguns had virtually the same pattern. Moving to 1 1/8 ounce, the 20 threw messy patterns but the 12 had nice even patterns, like the 1-ounce result but with more shot within the same area. My 16- year old son is talented with a shotgun. He got the flying clay bird with every shot but the last of the 1 1/8 ounce loads. With the 12 he missed one of the 7/8 ounce loads. So 29 out of 30 with each gun. All the patterns and targets were with #8 shot. We then shot each barrel of the 20 with 1-ounce #7.5 copper plated, and the 12 with 1 1/8 ounce of the same. Both patterns are nearly identical from respective barrels of each shotgun. We proceeded to the field with the guns loaded as such. My son knocked down four chukar in a row with the 20 and one pheasant, then he missed one chukar. Switching the 12, he shot 2 chukar and a pheasant, then missed one quail and finished with killing one more chukar. So, these two shotguns performed exactly the same for the same shooter on clay targets and in the field. My son said the 20 felt a lot shorter even though in reality it’s only and inch less than the 12. He also said he held the 20 with his lead hand a bit more forward on the barrels than he held the 12. After, I shot a few clays with each and was able to switch between them easily with no change in results. I had the same hit/miss ratio with each. While not the most scientific experiment, we learned that loaded to its sweet spot, either was as effective as the other.
