I was looking for a cheap, do-all shotgun and a buddy loaned me his Pardner ‘Protector’ 12 gauge for a test drive. This is a $179 Chinese copy of the 870 Remington sold by WalMart and most 870 parts, excepting the barrel, will interchange.

I hung a B21FS and attached a sticky note for an aiming point; the body was engaged at 25 yards and the head was engaged at 15 yards. I held six o’clock and fired one round each of 2 ¾” Universal 7 ½ shot, 2 ¾” Super X 00 Buck and a Super X 2 ¾” slug. The results are self explanatory.

The gun printed a little low with a six o’clock hold but when I covered the note with the bead, I started cutting it with slugs at 25 yards.

My impression was that the Pardner is a pretty decent shotgun for the money.  It could stand a little refinement; the trigger was gritty as hell and the base of the sight bead just barely protruded into the bore, perhaps enough to queer the patterns a little. None of these are problems for the hobbyist gunsmith. I am tempted to buy one, clean up the rough spots and have a set of choke tubes installed.