Just when you thought I was a man of the people, writing about $500 econo-guns…

I’ve always admired Anschutz rifles because they are very accurate and very German. In a time when everyone is selling out to American culture, Anschutz remains as teutonic as lederhosen, Wagner festivals, and sauerkraut farts. However, while the 1770 could not be anything but a Deutsche Bucsche*, it is distinctly American in purpose—it is the reincarnation of a gun I remember from my youth, the walking-around varmint rifle.

Once upon a time the proper form for hunting varmints was to sling a hunting-weight .22 centerfire across your back, put lunch and a canteen in a pack, and hike o’er hill and dale (being careful, of course, not to step in the cowflop) to see what was there. Townsend Whelen and Warren Page loved to do this, and I did too. Now, however, any respectable varmint rifle has to weigh as much as one of Rosie O’Donnell’s buttocks, which takes the fun out of the hiking.

Enter der Anschutz 1770, which weighs just under 8 pounds, has a medium-weight barrel of just under 22 inches, and can be carried around by a normal human being. It’s chambered in .223 only, has a big tactical bolt handle, and a very nice single-stage trigger that’s set at 2 ½ pounds. The action is actually Anschutz’ first new one in a long time, and features six (!) locking lugs and a very short 60-degree bolt lift.

The stock on my 1770 was a very, very pretty piece of fiddleback walnut with a Schweinsruken*  (hog’s-back) comb, Schnabel fore-end, and  very deep, full pistol grip. (I’ve just learned that in response to American demand, there will be a Classic 1770 with a straight comb, and a Luxus with a Monte Carlo comb.)

The one jarring note is a detachable in-line magazine with luminous strips along its sides. I guess they’re there to keep you from losing the thing. I didn’t have the 1770 for as long as I might have liked—there was only the one in the U.S.—and so I didn’t get the kind of accuracy out of it that I’m convinced it was capable of. Most ammo turned in 3/4-inch, 5-shot groups at 100 yards, but Ich schwore* bei Gott that if I could have wrestled with it for a while longer the groups would have measured 1/2-inch.

At $2,495 the 1770 is an expensive rifle, but it is also exotic, a wonderful piece of gunmaking, and a delightful gun to shoot. If you are jaded at all the synthetic-stocked look-alikes that grace our gunrooms, here is something truly different. Jga.anschuetz-sport.com.

*Yes, I know the umlauts are missing. You put umlauts in my MAC and I’ll use them.

If there is a more put-upon group of people than gunsmiths, I can't think who it might be. These gunsmith gripes are from John Blauvelt of Wallkill, NY. I would add one of my own to the list: People who chew a gunsmith's ear off about what they should buy, then go buy it at Wal-Mart to save $3.68.

Filthy guns. Just because you are having your gun repaired by the gunsmith does not mean that he is going to clean it for free.
 
Supplying your own parts. Usually goes like this-- "I bought these used parts off of EBay and tried to install them myself...." Try this the next time you go to have your car repaired. See where your auto mechanic tells you to put those parts.
 
"I want to pick your brain." This is the start of the phone conversation that then goes on for a half hour. What the hell. I was sitting here with nothing to do, waiting for you to call for free advice on how to install the parts you bought on EBay.
 
Gun puzzle in a box. Starting line while holding cardboard box: "I took it apart to fix it, and I cannot get it back together."  So now I have to put it back together, find out what's not working, and then take it apart again to fix it, then reassemble it again. Of course I am not to charge extra for this.
 
"How much?" The customer wants 47 different custom things done and is trying to find the cheapest gunsmith to do them. This list usually comes in the form of an e-mail and was sent to every gunsmith he can find on the internet. You never hear back from him.
 
"That repair is almost the price of the gun." The gun was bought by his father, used, in 1927, and is a Sears Roebuck brand. My usual reply: "Gasoline was also 10 cents a gallon then. What are you paying now? "
 
Thanks for allowing me to vent.

My first takeaway from this year’s Iowa State Sporting Clays shoot: tighten your chokes.

I’ve never believed in cranking choke tubes into the muzzle super-tight, but I do make sure they are firmly seated, then I nervously check them periodically during a day in the field or at the range.

From now on I’ll be examining my tubes more often after seeing somebody launch one – something I had heard of but never witnessed before this weekend.

There were five of us recreational Hunter-class types squadded together, and at the last minute, Frank, a Master-class shooter, joined us. He had an ever-so-slightly abrasive manner and an absolutely beautiful O/U that cost  in the neighborhood of $15,000-$20,000.

At Station Four, he crushed a target. What I thought was the wad went flying through the pieces. Then we looked at the muzzles of his gun, and one of the extended tubes was gone. The tube had come so far unscrewed that the threads in the muzzle weren’t even damaged. The shot charge just snagged the choke and took it along for the ride as it flew out the barrel. It fell in some long grass where there was no chance of finding it without a metal detector. Frank screwed in another tube and kept shooting. “That was a $60 shot,” he kept saying.

My second takeaway from the shoot: lighten up. Even before he sailed his IC into the prairie grass, Frank was not having a good round. He missed three at the first station – a disaster for someone at his level  --  then he let his anger and frustration turn a bad start into a trainwreck.

One of the keys to breaking five identical pairs in a row is to keep an even pace to your shooting. Frank would rush through each station (I think he just wanted to be done with the round), smashing targets but taking less and less time between pairs. Watching him, it was painfully obvious at every station that he was headed for a miss in the fourth or fifth pair. When he did whiff, I thought he was going to throw his gun. All he had to do was slow down, set an easy pace and enjoy himself, and he’d have shot a much better score.

In the interests of full disclosure, my attitude at the state shoot was awesome: I was relaxed, happy, took my time between pairs and Frank still outshot me pretty badly.  On the other hand, I had a great time and he did not, so which of us really came out ahead? Even when enjoying yourself doesn’t help you shoot better, it is its own reward.

With the exception of John Daly’s pants (below), I have no problem with golf, but I stay as far away from it as possible. My fear is, if I ever tried it, I might really, really like it. Then I would have two time-consuming, expensive hobbies instead of just the one that I get to call “work.”

Nevertheless, it has long been my contention that good shooters make good golfers, and vice versa. Golf and shotgun shooting require almost the same skills of eye to hand coordination, focus, and ability to think only of the next shot. As an experiement, I read Dr. Joe Parent’s Zen Putting recently, imagining the word “shotgun” wherever I read “putter” and almost everything in the book applied perfectly to target shooting, and sometimes even to hunting. I found the book fascinating and helpful and I recommend it, whether you are a shooter or a golfer. You can get it for $22.50 at zengolf.com.

It turns out Dr. Parent even coached a trapshooter by phone for a couple of years, a woman from Ohio named Sally Telfer who had stumbled upon Zen Golf, one of his earlier books. Although Parent knows nothing about shooting, he helped Telfer so much with her mental game that she was able to break her first 200 straight. “It was at the Ohio State Shoot,” she told me. ”It was windy and everyone was complaining about the targets but I didn’t notice they were hard. I was in the zone and never wanted the shoot to end.”

If shooting and golf are as similar as I think they are, then there must be some scratch golfers out there among you Gun Nuts. Anyone care to fess up?