Gear

S&J's +1 shotgun extension leaves the *total unstated*

S&J's M2-G1 announcement promises one more round while remaining Canadian legal. The assembled count, ammunition design basis, and separate waterfowl limit need their own answers.

Steve Coppola

Steve Coppola

— 4 min read
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A black tube extension, loose steel spring, green follower and red shotshells on a blue mat over a grey workshop bench.
A loose magazine tube extension, spring and follower sit beside shotshells on a workshop mat.

S&J Hardware announced a magazine extension for Benelli's M2-G1 on Friday, October 23, with a short promise: one more round, still Canadian legal. The maker's CanadianGunNutz post and product page describe the increment. Neither states the complete magazine's capacity after installation or which shell length establishes that count.

That missing total deserves attention. Rangeview's separate S&J Benelli M2 listing currently offers PLUS 2 and PLUS 3 options. It describes the hardware and dimensions, while leaving the assembled shell count unstated. An owner comparing those parts needs to establish the starting configuration as well as the advertised addition.

I buy most of my firearms online, so I put considerable weight on the product page. With an extension, I would want the seller's answer about the complete tube in writing. A small upgrade can carry a surprisingly large homework assignment.

Five, with a design history

The federal rule appears in Schedule Part 4, item 3 of SOR/98-462. The usual five-cartridge provision includes magazines designed or manufactured for a semi-automatic firearm other than a semi-automatic handgun. Its test uses cartridges "of the type for which the magazine was originally designed." The provision also has exceptions, including rimfire magazines.

For a semi-auto shotgun buyer, the ammunition design basis and the capacity of the complete magazine belong together. The +1 label supplies an increment; the regulation addresses what the magazine can contain. A buyer needs enough information to connect the two for the exact configuration being considered.

The RCMP's capacity guidance summarizes the usual five-cartridge limit for most semi-auto centre-fire long-gun magazines. It also explains how design history matters when magazines serve more than one firearm type. We have covered that broader distinction in the rifle and handgun context.

There is a substantive consequence to getting the assembled result wrong. Criminal Code section 104.1 makes it an offence, without lawful excuse, to change a magazine into a prohibited device when it began outside that category. That wording makes the actual change and resulting device important.

Which shells establish the count

Rangeview gives a fuller explanation on its S&J Beretta 1301 Tactical extension page. The listing bases its Canadian claim on the largest shotshell the shotgun accepts. It describes room for six 2¾-inch shells while calling the longer-shell capacity "5.9 rounds of 3″ shells." Its Benelli M4 extension page uses similar wording.

The fraction is an awkward way to describe room left in a tube. More usefully, those pages tell a prospective buyer which ammunition the seller used to explain its capacity claim. The shorter M2-G1 announcement leaves that part of the explanation out.

The regulation itself uses original cartridge design type. It does not expressly prescribe a universal rule based on the longest shell a chamber accepts. The seller's explanation therefore needs to remain attributed to the seller. These product pages alone cannot establish the legal result for every shotgun, factory tube, and extension combination.

The current RCMP web page, marked as modified October 18, 2024, contains rifle and handgun examples but no worked shotgun-tube example. A current example identifying the relevant shell length and magazine design would help owners follow the rule. That is a specific gap in this public page, without making a claim about every answer the Canadian Firearms Program has ever given.

Fit and capacity need separate answers

One Rangeview extension listing names Benelli Nova, Super Nova, and Beretta 1301 Comp applications. That establishes the seller's compatibility claim. It leaves a further question about the particular complete magazine and firearm configuration a buyer intends to use.

A shared component listing supplies too little evidence to apply the RCMP's dual-use rifle examples directly to every assembled shotgun tube. I would ask the maker to identify the exact application, its assembled capacity, and the basis for the Canadian claim. Until those details are established, this article reaches no lawful-or-unlawful finding about any listed SKU.

Ducks have their own number

Migratory game bird hunting adds a separate equipment rule. The ordinary shotgun provisions in section 37 of the Migratory Birds Regulations, 2022 require a shotgun designed to hold no more than three cartridges, or a capacity reduction to three in the magazine and chamber combined. For the plug route, the regulation specifies a one-piece metal, plastic, or wood filler that requires disassembly of the gun to remove.

A wooden filler beside a shell pouch on a pickup tailgate, with folded waders, reeds and marsh water behind.
A one-piece magazine filler rests with waterfowl kit at a marsh-side tailgate.

Section 37 also restricts the cartridges actually held while hunting in the hunting area and the capacity of detachable magazines possessed there. The regulation contains limited territorial exceptions. Its ordinary three-cartridge equipment test gives a hunter another configuration question to settle alongside the general magazine rule.

Leaving cartridges out of a larger-capacity shotgun does not, by itself, establish compliance with that equipment test. Nor can a product's +1 description establish whether a particular filler still does its job after the configuration changes. The maker's documentation should address the actual setup.

The answer I would keep

Opinion.

S&J has made a Canada-specific capacity claim, and some of the seller pages explain the ammunition behind it. That detail is useful. I would like the M2-G1 announcement to carry the same sort of explanation, with the assembled total stated plainly.

For an online purchase, I want an answer naming the exact shotgun configuration, the shell type used to establish capacity, and the complete magazine's count. If the legal design basis remains uncertain, that is the question to put to the Canadian Firearms Program, with the product details attached. Owners trying to comply deserve an explanation they can follow and retain with the purchase information.

The Dispatch brings useful Canadian ownership reporting together each week.

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