I once mentioned to a southerner that in Iowa where I live, mourning doves are protected songbirds.* “Ain’t worth livin’ there,” he said. Every year, on September 1, I think he might be right. Unless I manage a trip out of state, I am stuck on the sidelines for the biggest opening day of the season, rooting for all of you who are lucky enough to live where doves can be hunted.

Just because I don’t get to shoot doves every year doesn’t mean I don’t think about dove guns in August.

While I prefer two barreled guns for upland hunting, I don’t like getting caught by a suicidal bird bearing down on me when I’ve got a break-action gun broken open to reload.

And, I love pumps for waterfowling but in the dove field, working the slide pulls me off target for follow-ups.

That leaves semiautomatics, especially gas guns. Their soft recoil, rapid follow-ups and ease of reloading make them perfect for the job.  In this picture, taken five years ago in Argentina, I’m shooting a 20 gauge Beretta 391 with an Improved Cylinder choke tube, which I would call an ideal dove gun.

You may notice the bird boy has the look of someone who has seen plenty of Yankees shoot and is not over-awed by yours truly. Most of the doves were high and tricky that day, flying above the treetops in twos and threes. However, not long after this picture was taken, a huge bunch came very low and fast over the stubble.  I shot three with three shots, then thumbed two more shells into the gun and took another pair before the flock passed out of range. ** The jaded bird boy blurted something like: “i Holy *@&!”

Frankly, I was pretty impressed myself.

Good luck to all of you who are opening the season Tuesday.  What will you be taking to the dove field?

*we owe the dove’s ongoing protected status to in Iowa to former governor Tom Vilsack, who, back in 2001, indicated to sportsmen he would sign a dove hunting bill, only to veto it a few days later. Vilsack is now your Secretary of Agriculture, by the way.

** If you were wondering, we ate a lot of grilled dove while we were down there, and I brought back a big cooler-full.

Today we have a test with no wrong answer.

Most introductions to shotgunning begin with the “master eye” test. You hold your arms straight out at eye level, fingers up, palms out, hands overlapping, leaving a small hole between the hands  through which you sight a faraway object. Then you pull your hands back, keeping the object in sight, until they wind up over one eye or the other. That’s your master eye. If you pull your hands back over the other eye, the object you were looking at disappears. You can also keep you arms extended, sight the target with both eyes, then close one eye then the other.  The object will seem to jump sideways out of sight when you close your dominant eye. Try it.

With luck, you will turn out to be right-eyed and right-handed or left-eyed and left-handed. However, you may be cross-dominant -- right-handed and left-eyed, for example. The best thing to do is learn to shoot from the dominant eye side. My older son, Gordon,  is left-eyed and right handed. I taught him to shoot left handed from the beginning.

If you don’t want to switch sides, you can shoot with one eye shut, or use a small piece of tape on your shooting glasses positioned so it blocks just enough of your master eye’s vision that the other eye takes over.

I’ve given the master eye test to a lot of new shooters, and I’m learning there is not just right and left eyed dominance. Some people are both-eye dominant or “center dominant.”  My younger son John is center dominant – when he does the eye test his hands wind up over the bridge of his nose, not over one his eyes, but it doesn’t affect his shooting. His friend Nicky, who just joined our high school trap club, is extremely center-dominant. If she puts the gun to her right shoulder, the gun blocks enough of her right eye’s vision that the left eye takes over, vice versa if she tries shooting left handed. The first time she shot I hadn’t figured this out yet, and she broke four targets out of about 100 (she liked shooting and wouldn’t  stop). Next time, I tried making her shoot left handed, but that didn’t work any better than right handed. Then I put a small piece of masking tape over her glasses to block the left eye’s vision,  and she started  pounding targets. Last weekend, her third time shooting a shotgun, she broke a 20x25.

So, how did you all do? “Normal” dominant, cross-dominant or center dominant?

On December 19 of last year, I boldly predicted that former New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress would avoid doing prison time for illegally carrying a Glock and shooting himself in the leg with same. I also quoted a judge friend of mine (a merciless man whose personal heroes are Jack Ketch and Isaac Parker) as saying that although there are ways around felony charges, this happened in the Kingdom of Bloomberg, and there was no way Plaxico was going to skate.

I was wrong and the judge was right. The joker in the deck was the Giants dropping Plaxico from their roster, and with no one to cut a deal for him, it was goodbye Giant blue, hello prison orange. I’m still amazed they cut him. The NFL has room for dog murderers, wife and girlfriend beaters, nightclub brawlers, drug abusers, one vehicular homicide while drunk, and God knows what else. It makes Plaxico’s stunt seem almost like a boyish prank.

Plaxico tried appearing before the grand jury that indicted him to try and talk them out of it, but the jury was unmoved by his spiel and sent him before the court, where he plead not guilty (which, had he been tried and been found guilty, would have sent him away for 5 years) and then seconds later, his attorney changed the plea to guilty, which got him 2 years.

So Mayor Bloomberg is happy, and Plaxico will eventually emerge from prison, and explain how he is now rehabilitated and filled with remorse, and some team will pick him up. If no one does, I suggest that he avoid law as a career; he doesn’t seem to have much of an instinct for it. --DEP

The Remington Custom Shop in Ilion, NY has, over the past 30 years or so, turned out pretty guns, very accurate target rifles, and tactical rifles, but serious, high-grade working rifles were not on the menu. This all changed a year ago when the company brought in a product development manager named Carlos M. Martinez, who is a rabid hunter. Quicker than you could say “major investment in new machinery for the shop in Ilion,” there sprang forth a line of very earnest high-grade working rifles.

They are: the Alaskan Wilderness Rifle II, the North American Custom, the African Big Game, the Safari KS (for Kevlar Stock), the African Plains Rifle, and the 7 MS (Model 7 action, Mannlicher Stock). The one that made my liver quiver was the first, the AWR II, shown above.

The basis of the AWR II is a stainless-steel Model 700 action that is blueprinted (worked on by hand until it is dimensionally perfect), and fitted with a 40-X trigger (Remington’s competition trigger) that is set at 3 pounds. Next comes a stainless-steel trigger guard and floorplate, and the whole thing is topped off with a stainless-steel barrel that is hand-lapped and chambered in Ilion. (Later on, when all of the new machinery is in place, the barrels will be button rifled.) The inside of this barrel is as beautiful as Ms. Natalie Portman, shown at left. All the metal* is coated with black TriNyte, which is rustproof and everything-proof. The stock is by Bell & Carlson, and incorporates a full-length aluminum bedding block.

There are 56 calibers available, and the barrel lengths are 24 inches for standard calibers and 26 inches for magnums, which makes no sense at all. A .300 Weatherby or a 7mm STW needs 26 inches, but a .338 (which is what I asked for) can get along fine with 22 inches, and that long tube just gets in the way. I told the Remington people I wanted a 24-inch barrel and then I held my breath until my face turned purple, and the rifle arrived with a 24-inch barrel.

At 7 ½ pounds it is a light gun for a .338, but it kicks very little. This can only be due to the big, fat Super Cell recoil pad with which it’s equipped. Remington makes all kinds of extravagant claims for the Super Cell and they are apparently true.

The real surprise was the trigger. The Custom Shop says they are set at 3 pounds, but mine broke at 5 pounds, 2 ounces, with way too much sear engagement. I measured it on my old spring scale and my Lyman electric scale, and there it was—5 pounds, 2 ounces. Luckily, the 40X is an easy trigger to adjust, so in the privacy of my own home I took it down to 3 pounds. It is my considered opinion that whoever worked on this trigger needs a smart rap in the nuts to remind him of what he’s supposed to be doing.

But that was the only sour note. This AWR II is a very fussy rifle, and I had to fight it fang and claw for every load that worked, but when we agreed on something, it was well worth the trouble.

Barnes 225-grain TSX--.927”

Barnes 225-grain TSX Tipped—1.026”

250-grain Swift A-Frame--.731” (with one group that went into .224)

Swift 275-grain A-Frame--.670”**

I did not try factory ammo in the rifle. If you’re willing to pay what this gun costs and you don’t handload, there is something seriously wrong with you.

The MSRP for the AWR II is $3,530. So, the questions arise, is this just a Model 700 in fancy clothes, and it is worth all that dough? The answer to the first question is no. The AWR II retains the familiar Model 700 lines, but there is nothing in it of an off-the-assembly-line 700. It is a different gun altogether. The answer to the second question is yes. Whoever designed this rifle really knew what they were doing. Everything about it makes sense, and its performance is equal to that of any custom rifle I’ve used. If you’re looking for a bolt-action to tote through the bogs and the devil’s club, this is about as good a gun as you can get.

*The photo on the Remington website shows an AWR II with a bright bolt. This is a mistake; the bolt is black.

**When the .338 first came out, Winchester offered a 300-grain  load that was very highly thought of in Alaska as big-bear insurance. It was long ago discontinued, but the 275-grain Swift is a much tougher slug, and is what I had up the spout when I was hunting moose in brown-bear country. You can get it going at 2,450 in a .338, and 100 fps faster in a .340 Weatherby or a .338 RUM.