Shotgun aficionados have uttered the name “Fratelli Piotti” with a veneration reserved for the English best. The Italian gunmaker has given us among the most beautiful over/unders and side-by-sides ever to grace our planet since opening its doors in the late 1960s.
Africa is in the blood of Joe Coogan and now that he’s left shotgun maker Benelli USA he’s returning to the place that shaped him as a man.
Mr. Coogan, one of the last witnesses to the Golden Age of African safaris, is teaming up with his old-time friend and colleague Soren Lindstrom of Soren Lindstrom’s Africa to offer wingshooting adventures in South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia along with other hunting safaris. Mr. Coogan recently started Africa All Ways from his base in Merritt Island, Florida to support and represent Soren Lindstrom’s Africa here in the U.S.
It took five years to complete, but the vision of Franco Gussalli Beretta and Master Izumi Koshiro was ultimately unveiled on February 5, 2015 at the Safari Club International Convention in Las Vegas.
The SHOT Show brings together the firearms industry and its offshoots to the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas. It’s a candyland of guns with 12½ miles of aisles roughly equal to 13 acres hosting some 1,600 exhibitors hawking weapons, tactical gear for military and law enforcement, and everything hunting related. Last year, the confab drew 67,000 mercenaries, cowboys, cops, soldiers, dealers and manufacturers from 100 countries. And by all accounts, the 37th annual SHOT Show held January 20-23, 2015 will prove more popular.
Thunderheads gathered in the low country of Northern Florida, the sky transforming into that eerie, green phosphorescence from lightning electrons stockpiling polarity. Meteorologists predicted the 48-hour deluge, but the looming monstrosity of the storm amazed and alarmed.
If you’re still shooting that beloved Browning over/under you’ve owned since college, be prepared to have your socks knocked off with the company’s new 20-Gauge 725 Sporting.
Although still a member of the fabled Citori family introduced in 1973, the 20-gauge 725 Sporting marks a departure from classic Browning over/unders characterized by broad beaver tail forends, bulky receivers and labored handling. To paraphrase that Oldsmobile meme, the 20-gauge 725 is “not your father’s Browning.”
Entering the new gunsmith workshop of Rich Cole, I immediately recalled my days as a graduate student at the University of New Hampshire when we lived in the picturesque, riverfront town of Portsmouth.
A sporting clays training session that drew top instructors to South Carolina in mid-June could change how the sport is taught to the majority of shooters using the new “Coordinated Shooting Method.”
In Part I, we met Charlie Mincey, former Georgia moonshine runner who would be our host for evaluating the new Ruger Red Label on sporting clays courses that we visited in a restored 1939 Ford Sedan moonshine car. In Part II, we shot sporting clays with the Ruger Red Label at the Foxhall Resort and Sporting Club as well as Barnsley Gardens — delving deeper into Charlie’s incredible story. Now in our final installment, we stress test the Ruger Red Label at the ravine-intense Etowah Valley Sporting Clays followed by a visit to Dawsonville, which is the heartbeat of the state’s moonshine culture.
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