I just bought a shotgun, a Mossberg 12 gauge. All I know about guns is very basic–I’m a decent shot and just a notice user, so I know about loading/unloading, a little about cleaning (now that I own my own I need to learn more), etc. All I have shot before is my dad’s old 12 gauge, so I’ve never bought a gun new. This may be a completely stupid question, but all the same I’d appreciate some info from people who know more than I do I heard something moving back and forth when I lifted the bottom part of the gun (sorry I don’t know the technical terms, but what I mean is the big piece of the gun that’s separate from the barrel) to screw the barrel on. I held it down so the thing would slide forwards, and it’s a small wooden stick thing with two rubber circles on either end–again, it’s not in the barrel, it’s in the tube right below the barrel (magazine tube?). What is this little stick, and does it stay in the gun or not??? Again, sorry if this is a dumb, obvious question, but it’s not obvious to me so I thought I’d ask. Thank you in advance.
Thanks so much guys. I won’t be using mine for hunting either, just for fun shooting and home defense (though hopefully I never have to use it for the latter), so I’ll just take it out. Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t removing some crucial piece that would cause it to fire incorrectly. Thanks again!

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Iowa and parts of Southern Wisconsin mandate that deer hunters use shotguns. Now, my stupid question is this: I’ve seen Hornady 20 gauge sabot slugs advertised as having 1800 fps of snot to them. Now, my 170 grain .30-30 has about 2100. If the whole reason for using shotguns is because of how far a projectile may go, isn’t using this super-shotgun ammo kind of defeating the purpose?! I suppose a shotgun slug will not carry 2 miles, but from what it said on that box, no drop out to 150 yards.

Secondly, if you’re allowed to hunt with a .357 pistol for deer, why can’t you hunt with a .410 slug?

I know rules are rules, but some of them seem kind of stupid. But, it does seem that technology has bypassed some of these rules. (Super sabots)

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