By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

Temporarily blinded from looking at a case full of gold Rolexes at the Safari Club International Convention, I stumbled into a darkened room where Eric Olds, Rangemaster at Gunsite Academy, was giving a seminar titled "Are You Shooting Me?" I've been to Gunsite, and had instruction from Eric, and it was good to be reminded of just how unique the Gunsite approach to shooting is.

Despite its odd title, the seminar was about practice—all phases of it, including safety, which is paramount in the Gunsite scheme of things. Eric has evolved his curriculum from his time as a Marine, as a high-power rifle competitor, as a hunter, and as an instructor who has spent 15 years watching screwed-up hunters shoot and figuring out how to unscrew them.

When I went to Gunsite several years ago, I went with a young woman on our staff who had never fired a rifle before. In a day and a half, Eric turned her into a competent shot. I’m still not sure how he did it, but he did it without doubt.

Not only is the instruction unique, but Gunsite is able to duplicate actual hunting situations—you're not shooting off a benchrest at 100 yards at a bull's-eye. It’s at real hunting distances over real chunks of Arizona at animal targets. As Eric says, "We can't replicate the Arctic, or a rain forest, but we can match just about anything in between."

Included in his talk was a maxim so profound that I’m passing it along to you. I suggest you all have it tattooed on whichever body part you find most convenient:

"When it comes time to shoot for real, you will default to your level of practice. If you haven't practiced, you better hope you’re having a good day."

Say amen.

Go to gunsite.com for a life-changing experience.

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

I’m indebted to Brian R. Peterson of our Los Angeles office for this one.
 
Savile Row is the London street that is home to most of the city’s bespoke (which is British for custom) men’s clothing stores, and for 200 years, the firm of Gieves & Hawkes has been among the most famous of these.

G&H offers a shoe called the Buckshot Brogue. It's a dress Oxford wing-tip that has little perforations in its toe. But with a difference.

In order to achieve a non-symmetrical pattern to the tiny holes, G&H shot a shoe from a distance of 12 feet, thereby probably breaking at least 12 of Britain's strange laws. The pellet pattern in the shot shoe was transferred to a computer, which adapted the pattern to left and right shoes.
 
They’re $400 if you’re interested in buying a pair. [Gieves & Hawkes]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

Back in the 1950s, a Washington State trapshooter and gunsmith named Al Ljutic (LEW-tic) made a good living re-building trap guns that had been shot into tatters, and became curious if he could build something that could stand up to the godless amount of shooting that ATA shooters do. (A serious trapshooter will fire several times more shells in a summer than a bird hunter will in a lifetime. I was only moderately serious about it, and I was doing 500 rounds a week.)

The result of his work was the Ljutic Mono Gun, which may be one of the most durable firearms ever made. It’s a single-barrel, break-open design that has only 12 major parts, and these are  massive and very carefully turned out. There are Ljutics that were made in the early 60s that are still in regular use, and it’s not uncommon for them to run through 500,000 rounds over the decades.

I was groping and fondling a Ljutic Mono Gun at the company’s SHOT booth, and was prevented from placing an order only by the price. It’s a lot of money. If you ever get a chance to examine one, do so. It’s a work of genius.

The signs and slogans posted in black-rifle world at the SHOT Show were an interesting indication of how our various wars are going. I regret that I didn’t write them down, and have done my best to recreate them here: