Who makes the best semi-auto shotguns? We have Beretta’s 1301 and the cheaper, but still awesome A300 Patrol. Mossberg’s 940 series is quite nice for the price. Benelli has its entire line of proven semi-auto shotguns. What about Savage? Savage imports and brands a lot of shotguns, but the Renegauge series is the first they’ve built in 50-odd years.
The Savage Renegauge
The Renegauge started as a sporting shotgun lineup, and Savage slowly evolved it into a line of various hunting shotguns, a 3-Gun variant, and a Security model. The Savage Renegauge Security provides a short and handy gas-operated, semi-auto, 12-gauge tactical shotgun.
It’s a bit of a dark horse amongst the various options from Mossberg, Beretta, and Benelli. In fact, there doesn’t even seem to be a review of the Renegauge Security on YouTube.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
What the Renegauge Does Differently
Whoever at Savage named this gun the Renegauge was clever, and I want to give them a hand. It’s a clever name. The Renegauge uses the D.R.I.V. system, which stands for Dual Regulating Inline Valve Gas System. The gun uses a dual-piston setup to drive a ring rearward against a spring to allow the gun to cycle.
The regulating part is the fact that the system siphons off excess gas before it even gets into the system. The gas is vented forward of the handguard. It’s clever. The system bleeds off excess gas to allow the gun to reliably cycle a wide variety of loads without being overgassed.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
This reduces recoil, improves reliability, and is a clever system. If you shoot this thing enough, you’ll see all the gas and carbon collecting forward on the handguard. The gun uses a one-piece bolt carrier that’s neat and lightweight, which helps because gas guns can get hefty.
All the reciprocating parts are chrome-plated to increase lubricity and make it easier to clean. The bolt is a rotating type to improve extraction and reliability. A buffer resides in the stock, so don’t get your hopes up for a PGO configuration.
On the Outside
Beyond that, the Security model has an 18.5-inch barrel that’s threaded for chokes and uses the Beretta/Benelli thread pitch. The magazine tube holds six rounds of 2.75-inch ammo or five rounds of 3-inch shells.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
The gun’s overall weight is seven pounds, which is fairly light for a gas-operated, semi-auto 12 gauge. It’s lighter than the Mossberg but heavier than the 1301. The gun comes with an adjustable rear ghost ring sight and a high-visibility green front sight. You can add an optic via a rail.
Breaking Down the Renegauge Security
The Renegauge Security has the modern ergonomics of a tactical semi-auto shotgun. The charging handle is nice and large, making it easy to use. The bolt release is massive, so it’s easy to find and use. The safety is large and sticks out fairly far, making it easy to use and quick to engage. Everything clicks and pops rather nicely. The loading port is beveled enough to make reloads easy. It’s on the competition side of large.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
I did a lot of reloads with this gun, but more on that later. Overall, it’s easy to reload if you don’t suck, and I sucked a lot. Beyond the basics, the Savage Renegauge has a lot of clever ideas, and one that leaves me absolutely flabbergasted. Savage fluted the barrel, which seems odd but addresses some complaints with gas guns. They tend to feel front-heavy since the gas system sits under the forend.
Fluting that barrel reduces weight and creates a gun that’s fairly well balanced. It might be a tad front-heavy but not obnoxiously so. A clamp connects the magazine extension to the barrel and provides a dual set of M-LOK slots. Unlike most of these clamps, this one is metal and stable enough to mount accessories without an issue. I want to buy these for all my shotguns.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
The Furniture
The furniture is fantastic in most ways. The foregrip is nice and long, with plenty of room to grip and a great texture. The stock is doing its best to mimic the Magpul SGA in terms of design. We have the aggressively angled pistol grip combined with a standard stock configuration. This aggressive grip design makes it easy to hold the gun up with your firing hand only. You can support the gun during reloads without it dipping, open and close doors, all that jazz.
You can add different cheek risers to work with optics and improve comfort. You can also adjust the length of pull. This is where I am left flabbergasted. You can adjust the length of pull, but the shortest length of pull is 14.25 inches. From there, you can add length to 14.7 inches and finally 15.07 inches.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
A 14.25-inch length of pull is standard for a sporting gun, but with tactical shotguns, shorter is typically preferred. How short it is depends on the user’s individual size. Most modern shotguns have a short position of 12.5 inches and can be expanded to 14.5 inches or so. I like a 13.75-inch length of pull, and I’m 6’5”.
I have no idea why Savage would include these adjustments. It’s a serious downside to this gun, and it holds this gun back.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
To the Range
I’ve been working on violin loading my shotguns. It’s something new to me, and trying to do it from Safariland two-shot pouches is interesting. In fact, if you watched me, you might as well play Benny Hill music as much as I fumble. However, that’s not on the gun.
The loading port makes it easy to shove rounds into the gun. The competition-sized loading port makes this thing surprisingly easy to keep loaded. When using a more traditional tactical loading technique, I had no problems keeping this fed.
Advertisement — Continue Reading Below
The D.R.I.V. system does a great job of regulating gas and delivers some nice, light recoil for a twelve-gauge. Everything from standard buckshot to 3-inch magnums handles nicely. The gun cycles cheap-as-dirt birdshot without complaint and without beating my shoulder up.
I cycled a hundred rounds through the gun in short order and never felt sore or beat up. The D.R.I.V., combined with the rubberized recoil pad, makes it pleasant to shoot and comfortable to handle.
Where the D.R.I.V. chokes is with the Fiocchi Defense Dynamics loads. The only malfunctions I had were failures to cycle this load. This is an eight-pellet No. 1 load at 1,250 FPS. It’s basically a reduced-recoil 20-gauge load, and this isn’t the first semi-auto shotgun that’s had problems cycling this load.
Other than that, this gun worked without a problem. It cycles low-recoil 00 without a problem, including my favorite Federal FliteControl. This load is only moving at 1,145 feet per second, but it runs through the Renegauge without a problem.
Going Fast
The Renegauge Security cycles quickly, and combined with the reduced recoil of the system, I was able to make a new personal best. Two rounds fired from ten yards in .64 seconds. That’s a lot of lead in very little time. Prior to that, I was in the .75-second range with a semi-auto shotgun, give or take.
The ghost ring iron sights are solid. I like ghost rings well enough, but a red dot would really spice this thing up. The front sight is bright green, and as soon as you see that green blur on target, you send lead.
Having such a bright front sight makes it easy to get the gun up and on target. If we step back to 50 yards and 100 yards, the ghost ring iron sights allow for excellent precision with slugs. You can zero in with adjustments and create nice, small groups within slug range. I’m not a big slug user, but I found it easy to hit a 10-inch gong at 50 yards and an IPSC target at 100 yards.
The Renegauge Legacy
The Renegauge Security is a tactical dark horse. It’s a solid gun that’s reliable, fast-shooting, and has low recoil. The ergonomics are mostly great, but that damn stock length makes no sense. With a slight redesign, Savage could run with the big dogs in modern tactical shotguns. Hell, they even include a nice case with the thing.
