Black Aces Tactical Reviewed: Bullpups or Bullsh**?

Before you purchase a Black Aces shotgun, consider a few points.

1. Do you want to use it for sport or defense?

Generally speaking, people purchase shotguns for two reasons: sport or defense. Black Aces Tactical shotguns lean towards the latter, but plenty of their models are also more than capable for the former.

2. What kind of action do you want?

You can bust clays, take one to the blind in the turkey woods or fields for goose, or use them for 3-Gun or home defense. There are pump-action and semi-automatic models to choose from — even a lever action — and in multiple configurations. Select the one that you’re most comfortable shooting and offers the best capacity for your intended use.

Pump-actions will eat any ammo you throw at them but are slower-shooting than semi-autos, while semis can be sensitive to lighter loads.

3. What kind of shell loads will you be shooting?

Admittedly there’s not a lot of variety here. It all comes down to what you want, so long as it’s a 12-gauge with a 3-inch chamber.

4. Magazine fed or underbarrel?

Mag-fed shotguns will offer better reload speeds and capacity, but you can’t reload as you shoot and the physical magazine is yet another thing to keep track of.

Now that you know what to look for, here are the best Black Aces shotguns options currently on the market.

1. Pro Series L Lever Action Shotgun

Specs:

• Action: Lever
• Weight: 6.4 lbs
• Capacity: 6+1

What we liked:

• Extended mag tube offers 6+1 capacity
• Light weight
• Quality Turkish walnut furniture

What we didn’t like:

• Shell loading is stiff
• Lever could be larger
• Safety switch unreachable in shooting position

Unlike other lever-action shotguns on the market, the Pro Series L uses its own design. Rather than being a copy of the Winchester Model 1887/Model 1901, with a Winchester-Esque price tag and a few modern features.

This has the benefit of offering a unique shooting experience, with some risk given you’re working with their spin on a lever-action shotgun.

While it cycles cleanly with the current loop, an even larger loop would help generate more leverage, enable users to get more of their hand in there and prevent focusing friction on the user’s knuckles—personal preference but worth noting for you guys with oversize mitts.

The magazine tube holds 6+1 of 2-¾” or 3-inch 12-gauge shells and an 18.5-inch barrel with a blade front sight. The gun comes with a set of chokes and is compatible with Benelli/Mobil chokes, so you have options well beyond the set included with the gun.

You can swap the stock for an included bird’s head grip if you prefer. You can also opt for a nickel or black finish and black synthetic or walnut stock, whichever combination is your preference.

Shortcomings

While the safety selector is easy to get at from the ready position, it’s simply impossible to manipulate the safety switch when holding the gun in a shooting position. This seems like a pretty basic oversight and one that violates one of the basic rules of gun safety; keep your safety on until aimed at your target & ready to fire.

Also, some pins have a slight tendency to walk out after 75+ rounds, and while nothing falls out, the tolerances on the Pro Series L could probably be improved.

We’ve also heard tales of the safety selector screw backing out after 75+ rounds and the screw which holds the lever to the action arm doing the same. So a regular inspection (as with all firearms) will ensure you can tighten, torque, and thread lock everything back into place if need be before hitting the range.

2. Pro Series X Semi-Automatic Combo

Specs:

• Action: Semi-Auto
• Weight: 10 lbs
• Capacity: 4+1 (+2/+6 Extensions)

The Pro Series X line is a modular shotgun, configurable to your desires. With a 3-inch chamber in 12-gauge, the semi-automatic version starts with a gas-operated semi-auto shotgun; from there, it’s all up to you.

You can opt for an adjustable stock with a pistol grip or a traditional stock, both in black synthetic. The forend has a forward Picatinny rail for mounting a sling swivel, flashlight, or both. Included are two barrels, one 18.5-inch and one 24-inch, both with a tall front blade sight.

The receiver has a ghost ring rear sight and a rail for mounting an optic, and +2 and +6 magazine extensions – along with a set of chokes – are included with the shotgun. Ordinarily, kitting a shotgun out like this is a rather expensive proposition, but this one is well within reach.

3. Pro Series X Pump

Specs:

• Action: Pump
• Weight: 8 lbs
• Capacity: 5+1

The Pro-Series X Pump is a pump-action shotgun with some tactical improvements. It’s a basic 3-inch 12-gauge shotgun with black synthetic furniture and your black or nickel finish choice.

The X series adds a ghost ring rear sight, a blade front sight, and a top-mounted rail for attaching an optic. The magazine holds 5+1, but extensions are available from Black Aces Tactical if so desired. The barrel is 18.5 inches, so it’s a compact shotgun.

The forend includes a section of Picatinny rail for adding a sling swivel (the stock has a swivel nodule as well) or a light… or both, with an offset mount. It accepts Benelli Mobil interchangeable chokes, as the rest of the Black Aces Tactical lineup does.

It’s somewhat simple as a compact shotgun, but it comes with many features that are great for a tactical/home defense shotgun, making it ideal (and affordably priced) for that purpose.

4. Pro Series M Semi-Automatic

Specs:

• Action: Semi-Auto
• Weight: 10 lbs
• Capacity: 5+1 Box Mag

The M series from Black Aces Tactical is magazine-fed (hence “M”) and is compatible with any Saiga shotgun magazine. Choose 18.5- or 24-inch barrels (with front blade sight) and black synthetic or walnut furniture, whichever is your preference.

Install the long barrel for hunting, then change it back to make it a home defense gun.

A pump-action version – the Pro Series M Pump-Action – is also available.

The gun comes with Full and Improved interchangeable chokes, but as with others, it uses the Benelli Mobil pattern if you want extended or different tubes. The included magazine is 5+1, but 2-, 8- and 10-round box magazines are available from Black Aces Tactical.

Other refinements include an ambidextrous charging handle and an AR-style safety selector instead of the typical cross-bolt safety found on most shotguns. If you ever wished a traditional shotgun could be magazine-fed, then this is your gun.

5. Pro Series Bullpup Semi-Automatic

Specs:

• Action: Semi-Auto
• Weight: 10 lbs
• Capacity: 5+1 Box Mag

Don’t let the rifle guys have all the fun; Black Aces Tactical also offers the Pro Series Bullpup Semi-Automatic. It’s a gas-operated semi-auto with a 3-inch chamber and an 18.5-inch barrel, but the overall length is just under 31 inches.

The barrel includes a shroud, which should help dissipate heat near the forend.

The charging handle is ambi-capable in that it can be swapped to either side. The shell ejection can be as well, and the safety selector and magazine release are also ambidextrous — so it’ll keep hot brass from scorching both lefties and righties.

The top of the receiver is railed, so you can install the irons or optic of your choice. Rails on both sides (3 o’clock and 9 o’clock) and bottom of the forend allow installation of accessories like a forward grip (a Black Aces Tactical vertical grip is included) or light or sling attachments.

Like many bullpups the stock is non-adjustable, so you’ll have to learn to work around any fit issues.

The Pro Series Bullpup – also available as a pump-action – takes Aktal 1919-pattern magazines, which aren’t terrifically difficult to source, and there are both standard and drum mags available for those with discretionary income to burn. You also have a dozen finishes to choose from, so make sure to get one that matches the drapes.

6. Pro Series S Max Semi-Auto

Specs:

• Action: Semi-Auto
• Weight: 10 lbs
• Capacity: 5+1

The Pro Series S Max Semi-Auto is a gas-operated 12-gauge (3-inch chamber) semi-auto shotgun in a more typical layout. It’s compact, with an 18.5-inch barrel, with an extended 5+1 magazine tube and blade front sight.

It’s relatively uncomplicated, with fewer adornments. You do have your choice of a black synthetic stock or walnut, but — like the Pro Series L — the user can swap the stock for a bird’s head grip if you’d like to convert it to a pistol-grip shotgun.

The bolt and charging handle are nickel-plated, and the gun comes with a set of interchangeable choke tubes that use the Benelli Mobil thread pattern.

You aren’t going to find a semi-auto shotgun with features like it for anywhere close to the asking price.

Started by Eric Lemoine, a Navy veteran, Black Aces Tactical began as more of an accessories company than an actual firearms company.

By about 2008, according to Ballistic magazine, the company had gotten off the ground making accessory rails for shotguns but decided to start selling their own rather than making accessories for other company’s products.

Shortly after that, they started selling their own shotguns.

To keep costs lower, they found an offshore manufacturer to make guns to their design and fit the niche they saw in the market, catering to the home defense and tactical market rather than the hunting market.

Various designs come in and out of their product lineup – last year, Tactical Life reviewed a side-by-side shotgun that is no longer on their website, so it must not have sold very well! – but you can always expect a certain amount of flux when it comes to firearms.

Their products have unique features and don’t pretend to be anything other than practical, tactical, and offered at a very competitive value.

Many American gun companies like Black Aces Tactical source production overseas because importing shotguns and selling them tends to be cheaper than starting a gun manufacturing company from scratch.

Many such companies, also including Black Aces Tactical, get theirs from Turkey.

Turkish firearms are a source of controversy, as some people believe that buying one somehow supports a corrupt foreign regime. Others point to spotty reliability and build quality of some brands in past years, although quality brands such as Stoeger and Escort have proven that quality scatterguns can absolutely be found in the land of the Black Sea.

By and large, Turkish guns (including shotguns) tend to be reliable, accurate, and sturdily built for a competitive price point, though sometimes lacking in fit and finish. In other words, solid working-class guns.

Black Aces Tactical shotguns are typical examples of precisely those working-class shottys.

While many Turkish shotguns tend to be (though aren’t always) more sporting or hunting shotguns, Black Aces Tactical specializes in more tactical or defense-oriented products, a unique place amongst the Turk scattergun players.

Since Black Aces make a wide range of shotguns, there are several reasons you might consider one, but we’ll lump those into two general categories.

• Sporting Arm Use. First, shotguns are generally excellent as sporting firearms. Whether it’s hunting, trap shooting, or just blasting away on the range, all sorts of shotguns are excellent choices for sporting. That’s one of the better things about shotguns; I think: depending on the kind of ammunition you feed it, it can be used for nearly anything you can think of in terms of sport shooting, from paper targets to an elk.
• Home Defense. home defense and other tactical situations

To keep the variety of Black Aces Tactical shotguns somewhat orderly, we’re going to discuss them here mostly in terms of their action and type of magazine.

Pump Action Shotguns

Of course, Black Aces Tactical makes the standard pump-action shotguns. These are fed through a tube magazine in the bottom of a receiver and require you to pump the action forward then back again to chamber another round. Pump-actions tend to be extremely reliable and can often feed the widest variety of shells without issue. They tend to have a little more recoil than some other types of shotguns that we’ll discuss below.

A variation of the pump-action, Black Aces does also make a magazine-fed, pump-action shotgun. Mechanically, these work nearly the same as the everyday pump actions, but they feed from a magazine that looks like an oversized AR magazine instead of the tube-style mag. But, interestingly, these still have an empty magazine tube to give the slide somewhere to ride.

Magazine-Fed Shotguns

Mag-fed shotguns are newer to the shotgun world, and many folks are skeptical. For a range toy or sporting gun, these might be something interesting to try, though some people remain concerned about shells of varying lengths and loads producing inconsistent performance.

Semi-automatic Shotguns

There are also semi-automatic shotguns on offer from Black Aces. Like the pump-actions, these feed from a magazine tube. But, instead of you having to chamber the next round manually, semi-auto shotguns use a recoil-operated system that does that for you. This has two significant benefits: you can shoot a lot faster, and the system soaks up some of the recoil, making these a little softer shooting. Some folks have reliability issues with lower-powered loads, but most full-power types of shot work just fine in modern semi-automatic shotguns without much problem at all.

Bullpups

Additionally, Black Aces make some less conventional designs as well. While some of these models do come and go based on sales over time, they have a bullpup shotgun that’s semi-automatic and magazine-fed at the time of this writing. While it’s about as far as conventional pump-action shotguns as possible, Black Aces’ willingness to consider different and new designs is one of the reasons that I like this manufacturer so much.

• Action Type. When considering buying a shotgun, the first thing that I think about is the type of action. As I mentioned in the previous section, shotguns are extremely flexible weapons, but some actions are better than others at specific tasks. A pump-action is a superb all-around design, but for something more specialized like trap shooting, I might go with something different, for instance, a semi-automatic. Additionally, if you’re already a shotgun aficionado, one of Black Aces’ more interesting magazine-fed designs or bullpups is more than worth considering to add diversity to your collection.
• Length. A second feature that helps us decide between shotguns is their overall length, which has to do with both the type of action and the barrel length. In general, the shorter the shotguns, the shorter the barrel, and the less effective range you’re likely to get. The exception to this is bullpup shotguns with a barrel length similar to longer, more standard types of shotguns, but because their action is behind the firing hand, bullpups can retain a full-length barrel. Shorter barrels and overall lengths are great in-home defense situations, but you lose some velocity, and the patterns spread out more in less distance from the barrel.
• Finish. Once I have the action type and length decided, the next step is the finish. These days, the most common finishes on shotguns are a black coating of some kind or a blued finish. Generally, these finishes are durable and can last for decades with just a little preventative maintenance. Black Aces does also make shotguns in a nickel-like coating that I love. While I generally go for a black or blued finish, a nickel-like satin finish with some wood furniture can be a fantastic look for a sporting shotgun.
• Accessory Support. A final important feature is the accessories you plan on using with the shotgun. Nearly everything Black Aces Tactical makes can be used with a sling at the very least, but if you want to use things like lights and optics, you will want to make sure that the models you’re considering are compatible with what you want to do. For instance, on a tactical shotgun, I want to be able to add a light and a red dot sight with a modern rail system.

• Under $500. For around the $500 mark, you can get a lot of Black Aces’ line, including pump and lever-action shotguns that feed from magazine tubes. These are great quality shotguns, especially for the price they’re offered, though they won’t come with all of the bells and whistles.
• $500-$1,000. For a little under $1,000, you can get almost anything you want from Black Aces Tactical, including semi-automatic and magazine-fed shotguns that are ready to go for home defense or to the range right out of the box. Of course, you’ll need to add accessories if you like, but Black Aces Tactical makes great shotguns for their relatively affordable price point.
• Over $1,000. Sub- $2,000, you’ll be at the highest end of the price range for Black Aces Tactical shotgun. You can get their best finishes and most innovative designs, including semi-automatic, bullpup shotguns that are magazine-fed shotguns. The higher you go in the price range in Black Aces, the more you can expect to get for features.

Black Aces Tactical imports and sells mi-rnge shotguns for a working person’s price point, but unlike many other “budget” offerings, it tends to give you a bit more bang for the buck in terms of features.

Sure, they aren’t Benellis. They aren’t Berettas. They aren’t Westley Richards. But what they are is functional, with some brilliant features, and at a very attainable price point. Not only that, there truly is something in the product line for everyone.

You can get high-capacity tactical shotguns for 3 Gun or home defense. You can get more traditional pump-action and semi-auto shotguns for hunting or any other purpose. Or you can get one of the Pro Series Combo packages and have all of the above in one fell swoop.

Pick the one that suits your needs best, whatever that might be, and you’ll get more than your money’s worth from one.

1. Tactical Life, Gun Review: The Black Aces Tactical Side by Side 12-Gauge Shotgun
2. Ballistic Mag, Gun Review: Black Aces Tactical DT Is No-NFA, 12-Gauge Quarters Bliss