Double barrel shotgun is the ultimate field gun

A hunting field is a different challenge to a shotgun than a trap or skeet range. In clay bird shooting, you will take you shotgun in a soft bag, the range staff will take your gun out of the box before the shooting. You shoot a good number of shots and ask about other people about the recoil of their guns. When you are done, you place your gun on a table lying nearby which has a smooth platform to prevent any scratches on the gun finish. The range staff comes and cleans your gun with WD-40 before putting it back in the gun carry bag. The staff carefully removes your 3000 PKR fiber optic sight and puts it in some side pocket. You place your bag in the car’s back seat and drive home.
In a hunting field, you have to walk a long distance. You realize that walking along the gun makes you breathless. You have to put the gun on soil many times to retrieve the game. Sometimes you place the gun with its stock on the ground and barrel supported against a tree trunk. The barrel slips and the gun falls on the ground, adding a couple of scratches on the wood. Field is very hostile environment. A field gun should always be less vulnerable to elements in the field. Your fiber optic bead becomes too much of a hassle than a utility in the field. You will either loose it in the field or break it.
A field gun should be light weight. Your Baikal MP 153, weighing around 4 K.G. with magazine extender becomes too heavy for your shoulders and arms. You envy other hunters who are carrying feather light double barrel guns. In short, Baikal MP 153 is not a field gun. Its good for water fowling or upland hunting with decoys but certainly a no no when you have to walk a long distance in the field.

Why autoloader and not o/u

I have a Russian autoloader (Baikal MP-153 or Remington SPR 453). I regularly shoot clays with it and sometimes go dove hunting. The gun has never let me down. I have observed the following reasons to prefer an autoloader over an over/under shotgun.

1. Less recoil: The recoil of an ordinary autoloader is and will always be less than that of an expensive over/under shotgun. No amount of advanced technology in an o/u shotgun can reduce the recoil which an autoloading shotgun naturally reduces by virtue of its cycling operation.

2. Single point of aim: The single point of impact (POI) is another great benefit of an autoloader. The shooter knows the point where all his shots are going to land. In an o/u there are two points of impact corresponding to a single point of aim (POA). A person shooting an o/u has to do a lot of calculation before placing the shot and a lot of analysis after missing the target. The autoloader gives you an ease as there is only one POI corresponding to the POA.

3. Adjusting shot volume: Shot volume is the ratio of pellets above and below the target. 60/40 shot volume means 60 percent of the pellets are above the target and 40 are below. You can adjust the shot volume of an autoloader to your desire (even to 100/0 in case of adjusting it for trap), but doing the same with an o/u is impossible because changing the shot volume of one barrel will disturb the shot volume of the other barrel.

4. POA is same as POI: In autoloaders, the POA is always the POI whereas in an o/u shotgun POA is not always the POI. In an over/under shotgun, each barrel has its own POI. A person shooting an o/u has to juggle with one POA and two POI.

5. Magazine capacity: Autoloader wins hands down. Some autoloaders have a magazine capacity of 11 cartridges.