There are two challenges to finding a great shotgun — fit and suitability.
The shotguns section of Shotgun Life is dedicated to helping you recognize the perfect shotgun (that you’ll want to keep for the rest of your life, and then hand down to your family for generations to come.)
For some people, finding a great shotgun is simply love at first sight. For others, a great shotgun grows on them — and they find themselves down in the basement cleaning it for absolutely no other reason than just to be in its company.
But for every shotgun owner who falls in love with their pride-and-joy, there are teams of engineers and craftsmen toiling away behind the scenes to bring your gun to fruition.
As you’ll see, shotguns are generally designed for a particular sport. Some shotguns have composite stocks and fore-ends to withstand the travails of duck hunting. Then there are single-shot trap guns with high ribs that help you intercept rising targets. And skeet shooters find that their beavertail fore-end is particularly adept at bringing about a smooth, quick swing.
So let the search begin. Here is what you’ll find in our shotgun section…
A quail covey exploded from the wire grass and Jarrett Lafferty straightaway downed a double with the 20-gauge Krieghoff Essencia side by side. As Regional Director of Ducks Unlimited from Tallahassee, Florida he has hit plenty of game birds on the wing with shotguns. Still, he was impressed with Krieghoff’s $29,895 game gun and immediately dubbed it “the meat stick.”
Blaser has parlayed its winning reputation with the F3 shotgun into a new line of affordable models that uphold the original’s quality, handling and performance at less than half the price –resulting in the exceptional Blaser technology becoming far more accessible to wing and clays shooters.
The sunsets of Sedona, Arizona draw seekers in pursuit of their own personal spiritual enlightenment to the fiery glow cast on high-desert rock formations. That haunting splendor is a monument to the local mystical soup of Native American beliefs, New Age transcendence and self-proclaimed UFO refugees. As a hot spot of awakening and harmony, Sedona is a natural home to artists who draw inspiration from the beautiful gods of the harsh, majestic landscape.
Round body bird guns exemplify the romance of the pursuit. Like hammer guns, the round body possesses a sense of purity that transports the shotgun and its owner to a time and place bucolic in nature and joyous to behold.
With a round body, the bottom hard edges of the action are softened with sensuous curves that can be cradled in your hand as an organic complement. Hunt in the Oregon high desert of Highland Hills Ranch and you’ll see those contours everywhere as you hunt for valley quail, chukar and pheasants.
Shooting the new ribless Perazzi game gun is a revelation.
At the Orvis Sandanona shooting grounds in Millbrook, New York, the long quartering-away clays presentations appeared with a clarity surprising to most shotgun enthusiasts. You never realize how much the rib intrudes on the sight picture until a ribless shotgun enters your life. The target is whole and clear − like a juicy navel orange ripe on a branch ready to pluck.
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.
New on the U.S. import scene is a four-load selection of Kent Gamebore lead target loads imported exclusively by Will Krawczyk of W.T. Sherman and Company since January 2015 and conveniently sold on their web site. These British-made shotgun shells will not be “value-priced” cheapies. Instead they have been selected to compete with American-made, high-end, lead-shot target loads. The Gamebore White Gold load being imported is expected to retail at somewhere between $83 to $90 per 250-round case. Two other loads – Black Gold and Platinum Trap − will sell for about $90 to $95 per case.
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.
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Shotgun Life is the first online magazine devoted to the great people who participate in the shotgun sports.
Our goal is to provide you with the best coverage in wing and clays shooting. That includes places to shoot, ways to improve your shooting and the latest new products. Everything you need to know about the shotgun sports is a mouse-click away.
Irwin Greenstein
Publisher
Shotgun Life
PO Box 6423
Thomasville, GA 31758
Phone: 229-236-1632
