Will the semi-auto Vepr 12 shoot most common shotgun shell well?  Like the stuff you find at Wal-Mart?  Thank

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Federal-Ammunition-12-Gauge-3-DRAM-100ct/17757345

The Federal will shoot fine, but the Winchester birdshot will not cycle. Not enough power

The real experts are on the VEPR12 forum at vepr.org. Great place for info. Here is a link to an ammo thread there.

There is discussion there about "dram equivalence" on the VEPR12 forum and I have no doubt it is valid but what I look for is the muzzle velocity specification on the box. Anything over 1300 fps is good to go in my experience and some stuff between 1200 and 1300fps works but anything below that gets into dicey territory. It varies with each gun, though.

The indoor range where I shoot does not allow shot shells so I have put hundreds of slugs through my VEPR12 and have not found one yet that doesn't work well. The plastic fouling can get pretty fierce shooting that stuff, though, so be sure to clean your gun frequently when shooting slugs instead of waiting until you have shot a hundred rounds or so. I have put 300 rounds of 00 buck through the gun in a day and not had a severe fouling problem.

Mine shoots everything good so far. Had 2 FTE on the cheap Estate 7 1/2 bird shot.

Avoid anything Winchester, they are crap in almost any shotgun.

I run Winchester AA Super Sport through my two Vepr 12s without issue.  Not the lowest grade ammo out there, but certainly not top grade stuff either.  I buy it when it goes on sale locally.

I have not had good luck with low-base shells thru mine.  Best thing for cheap ammo is Spartan 00 Buck, the stuff runs about 109$ for a case of 250 rounds so it's not ridiculously expensive and it cycles pretty well.  It's still a low-brass load but it's got enough powder in it to develop the gas pressure needed to cycle the gun well.  

If you want to shoot birdshot, I would suggest high power pheasant loads.

I agree 100%

I thought I had a bad shotgun, as I kept shooting Winchester birdshot through it and had problem after problem.

Switched to Remington birdshot and no more issues!  Of course I have 1500 rounds of the Winchester stocked up though

If you look at your local walmart they have the 100 round federal value packs of target loads for $19.94.

I wiped out my local store and bought all 7 boxes