By Philip Bourjaily

I think we might all agree that they don’t make 870s – or a lot of other guns – quite like they used to.

A little while ago, I mentioned the 70s vintage 870 Wingmaster I picked up and made a mag-tube recoil reducer for. Once upon a time, it must have been someone’s duck gun, but  in these days of steel shot,  a 2 ¾ inch chamber and a fixed full choke is not what people want. The gun had been beautifully cared for,  the barrel was 30 inches long, the action was left-handed and the price was only $269. I grabbed it.

By Philip Bourjaily

By Philip Bourjaily

A woman who used to have a hobby farm told me about the sheep she used to have. 
They got dirty, and she called the county extension agent and asked how to wash them.

“Use Woolite,” he said, and hung up.  She never knew whether he was kidding or not, so the sheep stayed dirty. I was able to tell her that yes, some 4-Hers do wash their show animals with Woolite, but it was many years too late for the dirty sheep.

By Philip Bourjaily

After some gun trading a couple of weeks ago, I wound up with a Browning BT-100 single shot trap gun. The 100 was made from 1995 to 2002, then discontinued in favor of the reintroduced BT-99.  I suspect Browning got rid of the 100 because the 99 cost less to make. Don’t get me wrong: BT-99s are also great guns, just not as great as this one.  It balances and handles better than the 99s I’ve shot, and, although it costs a small fraction of what you pay for a Krieghoff or Perazzi, BT-100s have one of the niceties of a high-end gun:  a removable trigger.