As September approaches, in our secret heart every shotgun disciple anticipates their annual pilgrimage to a beloved place. For some of us it’s the autumnal woods of Maine for woodcock, a goose hunt on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, sporting clays at The National Shooting Complex in San Antonio or maybe throwing clays from that rusty hand-loader at a family barbeque. Personally, that special journey takes me to Griffin & Howe’s gorgeous Hudson Farm in Andover, New Jersey.
How can you make a 12-gauge Krieghoff K-80 Parcours even better? By adding a second set of 20-gauge Parcours barrels to the highly desirable sporter.
Yes, you’ll have to pay $4,695 for that extra set of 20-gauge Parcours barrels, but if you factor in the entry Parcours price of $11,695 for the 12 gauge, suddenly you’re looking at some $16,390 for an investment grade shotgun that ranks by most as one of the best shooting clays guns on the planet.
For many of us vintage shotguns serve as time-travel capsules. Their aesthetics and craftsmanship harken to epochs of abundant game across pristine landscapes that nurtured our individual sovereignty and tranquility lost to the blight of smart phones and strip malls.
Sometimes the gentle reversal of time occurs when we initially handle the shotgun; pick it up and you’re immediately there. Otherwise, we gradually slip back in time as our relationship with the shotgun becomes more intimate; the deeper our connection, the more we identify with its heritage.
O.F. Mossberg & Sons is producing a new semi-auto equipped with a unique European walnut stock designed to fit most family members – as women in particular benefit from the anticipated sub-$1,000 “street price.”
The shotgun’s hallmark is a distinctive stock whose innovative measurements were formulated by Gil Ash, the celebrated shotgun instructor and visionary who has pioneered the marriage of brain research and high-tech into the curriculum of the OSP Shooting School in Fulshear, Texas.
You’re bound to hear some clays shooter brag that their muzzle-heavy shotgun helps them swing through that speeding crosser in an Einstein-like miracle of momentum and forward allowance. If you’re one of those folks the new Perazzi High-Tech Sporter probably isn’t for you.
The Beretta lifestyle of advanced shotguns, stylish apparel and mouthwatering accessories will soon turn another page in leafy Dutchess County, New York as the Beretta Shooting Grounds at Dover Furnace embarks on an ambitious buildout of new lodging at one of the top clays destinations in the country.
On May 16, 2015 Dave Miller, Shotgun Product Manager for CZ-USA, established a new Guinness World Record for breaking the most clay targets in an hour by smashing 3,653. Mr. Miller’s shotgun of choice actually involved an armada of 30 12-gauge, CZ 712 semi-automatics equipped with 30-inch barrels and Nordic Components magazine extensions, which expanded shell capacity to 16 rounds instead of the standard five. Bottom line, the CZ 712 pounded out a shell every 1.2 seconds, resulting in the Guinness entry. (See Shotgun Life story here.)
Welcome back to America, F.A.I.R.
After five years, Fabbrica Armi Isidoro Rizzini, known to its friends as F.A.I.R., has returned to the U.S. with an expansive inventory of affordable Italian shotguns and rifles.
The thrill of bird hunting in South Africa struck on our first morning out when, driving on rutted roads to the fields, we spotted zebras, wildebeest, reedbucks, eland and jackals. And as it would play out a jackal had grabbed an Egyptian goose I had downed even before our German Wiredhaired could retrieve it.
In recounting his visit with F.lli Bertuzzi, (the Bertuzzi brothers), Michael Sabbeth provides a window into the rarified world of bespoke shotguns as exalted art.
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