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 wave of new shotgunners entered the market in the 1990s. Some were lapsed skeet and trap shooters intrigued by a number of emerging clay target games. Remember when Sporting Clays, Hunter’s Clays, Wobble Trap, 5-Stand, Crazy Quail, and others were new to shooters? They all needed shotguns and the standard 12 bore was in such high demand that they were difficult to find on both the new and, especially the used, markets.
Most off-the-shelf shotguns are designed for a male right-handed shooter who is 5 feet/9 inches, weighs 165 pounds, with a 33-inch arm length and wears a size 40-regular suit. Put a gun for someone like that into the hands of seventh grader, your wife or girlfriend and you may turn them off forever to the shotgun sports after they got kicked in the face and shoulder (not to mention the cussinʹ coming your way).
When it comes to wingshooting, some hunters prefer inexpensive shotguns they can bang around in the field without any worry about the impact on their wallet. Mossberg gives those folks something new to consider: a premium-finished over/under with an MSRP of $1,135.00.
Let’s say I had $127,000 kicking around. As an avid upland wing shooter, what would I do with that chunk of dough? In the blink of an eye, I’d write a check for the Buchan Balmoral 28-gauge over/under.
In 2017, Shotgun Life traveled to Gardone Val Trompia, home of the best Italian gunmakers, where Luca Rizzini, who manages Fabbrica Armi Isidoro Rizzini (F.A.I.R.), gave us a tour of the company’s manufacturing facility and modern showroom upstairs. Luca is unpretentious, hard-working and dedicated to his craft – a direct reflection of the F.A.I.R. shotguns, including its latest Fossari.
At a suggested retail price of around $2,000, the Fausti Caledon is the tip of the spear of affordable shotguns in the company’s Core Line – important for expanding the Italian gunmaker’s share in the American wing and clays market. With some new aesthetic tweaks to the established Caledon, it appears that Fausti’s design team nailed the original Caledon value proposition of an entry-level over/under that continues to be rugged, attractive and accomplished. After shooting the latest Fausti Caledon, it’s easy to walk away with the impression of handling a price-class leader that delivers on functionality and durability, but now with a splash more glitz.
Legacy Sports International in Reno, Nevada has built a solid reputation with their Pointer Line of affordable over/under and semi-automatic shotguns – especially in the youth segment. Now Legacy Sports International is expanding the Pointer family into field-grade side by sides that will be available in both 12 and 20 gauge for $699.
Longthorne Gunmakers of Northampton, England has cemented its reputation for innovation since launching the business in 2008 by offering 100-percent, English-made shotguns with first-of-its-kind barrels machined from a single billet of steel – bucking the gunmaking establishment’s tradition of individual tubes joined through high-temperature soldering or brazing – or in rare exception laser-welded.
Spanish gunmakers established their reputation for duplicating the British Best at a fraction of the cost while nearly rivaling the performance of the original. But Dan Moore, owner of fine-gun purveyor William Larkin Moore in Scottsdale, Arizona thinks that the new Spanish Sporter from Arrieta & Arrizabalaga could mark a turning point where design inspiration for Spain’s remaining Eibar-region gunmakers instead comes from the Italian masters.
Ask your shooting buddies about the best new clays gun to buy for about $5,000 and they’ll probably rattle off the usual suspects: Beretta, Caesar Guerini, Rizzini or Zoli. Chances are you won’t hear about, perhaps the best shotgun in the category, the Blaser F16 Sporting.
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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
