Standing in my gun rack, at least during hunting season, is a short-barreled, very light side-by-side of a respectable, if not best, English make. It is surrounded by a variety of American pumps and automatics, and to the casual eye, the little shotgun stands out like a rose among thorns. Invariably, visitors ask if they can pick it up and look at it, and when I tell them to go ahead they swing it up to the shoulder and through an imaginary covey of quail or a rocketing partridge. When they do, I know that the dream of the light and fast shotgun has been rekindled in another heart.
What they never ask--absolutely never--is how it performs in the field, the bottom line. Actually, I don't do too badly with it in the field if I use it a lot and get used to the low moment of inertia--ease of getting it going, in other words--and if I constantly remind myself that a gun this easy to start is just as easy to stop. But it's the last gun I own that I'd attempt a decent round of skeet with, and it will never be in a duck blind or a dove field when the going is hot and heavy. It's a special gun, built for snap shooting in the heavy alder and birch covers, and for ease of toting up and down New England hillsides.
So to be fair and honest, the search for the ideal upland game gun means a gun of specialist function. I think we can agree that among its special functions is that it's easy to carry--meaning it has decent balance and doesn't weigh more than seven pounds and preferably a bit less--and handles a combination of powder and shot capable of killing a game bird at a distance of 35 yards or a bit beyond. Obviously, for all practical purposes (mostly financial), we're talking about a 20-bore. The normal English game gun is a 6 1/2 pound 12-gauge with 27- or 28-inch barrels that uses a 2 1/2-inch shell with one ounce or a bit more of shot. Lovely indeed, but you can't run down to your neighborhood hardware store or gun shop and buy one, and if you could, you couldn't easily buy the ammunition. What the British use so well is a 12-bore that very nearly conforms to the weight and effectiveness of our common 20-gauge, not exactly, mind you, but close enough so that we can get on with what's practical for us, right here and right now.
Before we get too practical, let's add that almost all of us would prefer to do our gunning over Maggie or Buck or Lady with a sleek side-by-side or over-under. Whether or not they are all that more ideal in balance than a pump or auto is a personal matter, but they should certainly be fast enough to mount, and smooth to swing. And in theory, they can be made lighter, having no magazine tube or breech bolt. All on the plus side of the ledger, agreed? We can even agree that even though this sort of gun is rather expensive, we feel quality and enjoyment can justify the expense, at least to each other if not to our wives and/or bankers.
I hear you ask, just how effective is this light and fast 20-gauge? Let me say that it can do its job probably a lot better than you can do yours! The one-ounce load of 7 1/2's carries about 345 shot, and at 40 yards each pellet has a striking energy of close to two foot-pounds, more than adequate for birds of the weight of grouse, quail, and woodcock, and sufficient for pheasant, although I would personally move up to No. 6 shot for a bird of this weight and plumage. If you stick with an ounce of 8's in the improved-cylinder bore and an ounce of 7 1/2's in the modified barrel and limit your shooting to ranges under 40 yards, you give nothing away, in practicality, to the 12-gauge gunner--providing your patterns are of sufficient density at the maximum range to ensure four or more pellets in a bird.
However, as we all know, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Will this light and well-balanced gun make you a faster shot? It certainly can. Will it make you a better or more consistent shot? Maybe. As I mentioned before in talking about balance, because you lose the natural momentum that exists in a heavy (eight pounds or so) 12-gauge, you have to learn a new set of shooting habits. One trick is to try a longer hold with the left hand, if you're a right-handed shooter. One of the many theories for this is to get more of the gun weight between the hands, creating more feel and better control. Of course the one thing we all forget until it's too late is that we almost always have much more time than we think we do at the moment. How often can you look back and know that you fired the first shot by fright and the second one by sight? Take the extra second or two and make sure you have the gun mounted correctly and that you're looking at the bird intently, not shooting more or less randomly at a blur in the air.
I don't see anything wrong with a lightweight pump or auto. You can easily get one balanced to your personal taste. Stock adjustment isn't too difficult or expensive, and in the end either works very well. More than one gunner I know is going into the bird fields with one of these moderately priced guns because his old doubles have gotten so valuable he's getting leery of tramping around the woods with one of them. That's a pity, but that's about where we are--or haven't you priced gun insurance lately?
Even though we keep telling ourselves dreams don't cost too much, the vision of the dainty double seems to fade quite quickly at the familiar and honest sound of a couple of 7 1/2's being tucked away in our nicked and worn pumps and autos. Next time old Duke or Max The Wonderdog hits a point, don't worry about what you're usingâ•”just do what we usually do and remember that the powder will smell as pungent, and the retrieve will be just as proud.
Home | Library | Hunting | Wingshooting