Reviews Redfield Vector 12ga Inertia Semiauto Shotgun: Best Beginner Hunting Shotgun? David Lane March 30, 2026 Join the Conversation At RECOIL, we review every product fairly and without bias. Making a purchase through one of our links may earn us a small commission, and helps support independent gun reviews. Read our affiliate policy. Find out more about how we test products. For over 500 years, shotguns have been the do-all firearm of choice. Birds, big game, self-defense, and shooting sports can all be done with a single shotgun. Shotguns are reliable, easy to learn, and offer more flexibility than any other type of firearm. If a .22 LR of some flavor is the perfect first firearm, shotguns are probably the perfect second firearm for almost everyone. Semi-automatic shotguns tend to be more complex. These are more expensive, less reliable, and often made to such low-standards that it’s almost impossible to fire a case of ammo without a cheap semi-auto breaking down. Thankfully, not all semi-autos are that bad. Academy Sports has built an empire around their store-brands that offer a ton of value for every dollar spent. Costco’s Kirkland is my favorite house-brand, but Academy Sports easily wins silver in my book. For firearms, Academy’s house-brand is the legendary Redfield name that Academy bought in 2021. Now offering a whole line of new Redfield optics, Redfield has also moved into firearms with the Redfield Vector inertia shotgun line. These new shotguns are attractive on paper. Budget-friendly, good features, and available at your local Academy. Do they hold up? Are they worth it? We took a trip to Texas to find out. REDFIELD VECTOR 12 GAUGE SPECS Action: Semi Automatic Metal finish: Black Activity: Hunting Barrel length (in.): 28 Series: Vector Handedness: Right Handed Firearm Action: Semi Automatic Firearm Capacity: 3+1 Product Type: Shotguns Cylinder capacity: 1 Style: Semi Automatic Shotguns Features: Manual Safety Finish: Camo Chamber length (in.): 3 Caliber: 12 Gauge Features and Benefits Semiautomatic with a 3-round magazine capacity Inertia driven action 28-inch barrel 3-inch chamber Stock and foreend are hydrodipped with Mossy Oak New Bottomlands camo Fiber-optic front sight with brass mid-bead Ambidextrous safety Vented high rib Enlarged loading port Microcell blend recoil pad Shell restrictor plug installed 5 Crio-pattern Flush Chokes WHAT MAKES A GOOD BEGINNER GUN When you’re new, you don’t know what you don’t know, so it’s easy to get bamboozled into buying more than you really need. If you’re not even sure what it is you should look for in a beginner gun, this should help. In my book, a great starter gun, no matter what kind it is, should be inexpensive and reliable. That’s really it. A firearm that doesn’t work right is an endless source of frustration and pain. If it’s a defensive firearm, it’s a liability. But even for sporting uses, a gun that doesn’t work just isn’t worth anything. Price is a concern for any normal person. Don’t spend too much because you’re probably going to either not like the sport and want to sell what you bought, or you’ll love it and you’ll want to upgrade later. Either way, don’t sink too much into a new thing if you don’t have to. Precision and extra features are nice, but don’t let those distract you. Truth is, even budget firearms are normally a lot more precise than anything your grandfather used. That’s just how good modern manufacturing is these days. Extra features can be nice, but they can also be more things to break. There are loads of great beginner firearms of every flavor. From ARs to pistols to revolvers to shotguns of every type, you got options. And lucky for you, the Redfield Vector fits the bill. DOVES IN TEXAS Before the Redfield Vector was even released Academy invited a group of media out to Texas to try their new guns. The entire lineup included a Redfield Vector that was HD-focused, hunting-focused, and 12- or 20-gauge. Getting to try all of them side-by-side was a ton of fun, but the one that captured my attention was the classic and very simple 12ga with a 28” barrel built for hunting and clays. Day 1 was on the range with more ammo and clays than we could go through in a week, but we did our best to put a dent in them. This being the second time I’ve ever tried to use a shotgun to shoot something out of the sky, it was my goal for the day to put as much lead in the air as possible to try and learn something about shotgunning. Thankfully, there were others around me that were more than willing to teach me all they knew. The Redfield Vector worked wonderfully. Zero issues all day, even after a lot of rounds and awkward at best loading, the Vector just worked. It didn’t care that its user was trying to figure things out; it just did its job. Day 2 saw the group with a rack full of Vector shotguns in a Texas field hunting doves. Again, the Vector proved it was worth its salt and then some. Hot, covered in dust, and fed the expected diet of bulk shells used for small birds, the Vector ran all day. Only two malfs near the very end of the day, but odds are that was as much shooter as it was gun, since inertia systems benefit from firm shouldering. By the end of these two days and several hundred shells, a new shooter's shoulder gets tired. THE FUN CONTINUED IN ARIZONA After the event, a Redfield Vector was sent to my local FFL so it could get a proper review. The first thing that happened was adding a Vortex Viper Enclosed Shotgun red dot. While the two beads on the Vector are perfectly usable, everything is made better with optics. Easier to use, better aiming, and able to adjust for patterning, a red dot adds a lot to a shotgun. From the square range to more trap and skeet, this new Redfield performed exactly the same as the one in Texas, except even easier to shoot since adding the Vortex red dot. This was more about proving to myself that the Texas shotguns weren’t one-off examples, and that the mass market Vector was actually this good. For the price, it’s surprising. Turkish-made shotguns get a bad rap a lot of the time, but much of it is undeserved. Sure, some of them are actually trash. But most of them are like the Vector. They just work. PROS: Inexpensive Reliable Drilled and tapped for red dot Very beginner-friendly CONS: Crio-pattern chokes aren’t the most common option to choose from LOOSE ROUNDS Between the clay range and the dove fields in Texas, the Redfield Vector saw at least 300 shells fired in 3-days of hard use. Back home in Arizona, this new Redfield Vector has seen about the same in a much more relaxed schedule of fire. Throughout all of that use, the Vector has only failed to feed twice — both at the end of the day in Texas after a lot of use and no cleaning. For a $450 shotgun, that’s a lot better than anyone normally expects. The Redfield is inexpensive, but it gets the job done. It’s durable, reliable, and doesn’t shy away from real use. It’s accurate enough that even someone totally new to shotguns was able to limit out on Doves, and that was before mounting a red dot. For the price, it’s easy to recommend this shotgun to anyone looking for an inexpensive entry to a great sport. 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