When out of spec ammo meets the Tavor TS12

The oddities with 12ga shells aren’t new and if you’ve really been into shotguns for awhile […] you’ve experienced this first hand.

The oddities with 12ga shells aren’t new and if you’ve been into shotguns other than break actions and the ubiquitous Mossberg 500’s, you’ve already experienced this first hand.

For those of you who watched our video on the TS12 you know we already covered the fact that not all 2 3/4″ shells have the same OAL and that the S&B, in particular, are oversized and you can only fit 4 in each tube instead of 5.

Recently we’ve seen a few posts from people asking why the TS12 is “only fitting 4 rounds of 2 3/4″ shells”, as opposed to it’s rating of 5 rounds of 2 3/4″ or 4 of 3″ shells. From what I have seen from IWI, it’s possible a few TS12’s got shipped with two followers in each tube (instead of one) and that may be an issue but the handful of people I’ve interacted with, after further questioning, have resulted with it being an ammo issue and not a gun issue.

First to the S&B issue and why it’s such a big one, S&B has been blasted on social media in the past year or so over quality control issues but their pricing has been pretty aggressive on several different calibers. One of those is their 12ga ammo.

I picked up a case of their max load 2 3/4″ 00 Buck shells for 25 cents a round delivered the last time I saw it sale earlier in the year. Given what I’ve seen online, I wasn’t the only one.

Why is this an issue now?

Most shotgun tubes, in the pump style especially, have excess room in their tubes. Part of the reason was to, originally, accommodate older spring designs and technology.

The TS12 is designed to exacting tolerances and there isn’t any extra “room” in each tube when loaded to capacity. In the picture above you can see the S&B is noticeably higher than the Federal, Winchester, Remington and Fiocchi that come in at 2.29-2.31 OAL vs the S&B at a whopping 2.475 OAL.

If you do the math that’s .875 added to the OAL for all 5 rounds. You can hardly fault the TS12 for not having that much extra dead space in the tube.

What about the manual shell release though?

One other issue I’ve seen raised is the manual release to unload the tubes from the sides. This is something I missed in the our review because I didn’t try unloading every type of ammo from the tubes manually but this falls squarely under the same umbrella that: not all 12ga is created equal.

For the rim sizes we have .883-.884 for the Remington, Winchester and Federal shells. The Fiocchi came in at .887 and the S&B was again the big boy at .889.

The shell release for the tubes on the TS12 needs to be depressed normally for the majority of the rounds I have on hand. The Fiocchi needs to be fully pressed in to release the round and the only way I can get the S&B out via the side release is to full depress the button and wiggle the base of the shell so it will come out.

This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means but I wanted to get this addressed as soon as possible.

The full video on the TS12 is on our YouTube, GunStreamer and Full30 channels.

About Joe

As an Oath Keeper Joe is known for his staunch, unwavering defense of Liberty and the Constitution. His background in medicine, from the streets as a FF/EMT to a level 1 trauma team, bring a unique perspective to TBS team. As a life long firearms enthusiast you may also recognize him from his work with MAC and as founder of 13C Gun Reviews.
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