As their one condition of taking me to me Italy and putting me up in absurd luxury, Beretta asked that I not release any of my own photos of the A400 until this week. I was allowed only to use their pictures, which didn’t show what the gun looks like. But the embargo is over, and here’s me, with the A400 at the Lonato Shooting Club, in front of the dino foot photo backdrop. Also, here are a bunch of  European gunwriters photographing the A-400. The guy in the sunglasses, stubble and striped shirt is a Russian gunwriter, by the way.  As a rule, we gunwriters are not a fashion-forward group,  but no one told this guy.

Anyway, as you can see here The Xplor looks -- in my opinion --   modern without being ugly. The receiver is anodized to a gray-green color just to be different (Browning, of course, offered red, green, brown and silver receivers for the odd but awesome Double Automatic 50 years ago, so that’s not a completely new idea). 

The A400 is light and handles well, at least in a limited test. I only had a chance to shoot about 25 rounds through the gun, and that was a mix of everything from 24 gram (7/8 ounce) 1325 fps International Target loads up to 2 ¼ ounce lead.  The Xplor cycled everything fine, and it is as soft shooting as a sub-7 pound, 3 ½-inch chambered gun can be thanks to its gas action and the recoil reducing system in the stock.

However, I am not going to get excited about the Xplor until it comes out in a standard-chambered sporting clays version. At that point I may – just like the compound bow owners I make fun of – decide to trade in my “obsolete” (read “perfectly good”)  Beretta 391 Sporting gun for an A400.  

There is talk of a 20 gauge next year, as well as rumors of a possible 28 gauge down the road.  That would be cool.

Today’s first course is crow in a figurative sense:

I have long insisted that the best waterfowl guns weigh a lot --  eight pounds or even close to nine – for  adequate recoil absorption. I believed they should have long barrels – 28-inches or even 30 --  and weight-forward balance.  I have said so in print many times.

I was wrong. Waterfowl guns can be long and heavy, but they can be short and light, too.

This summer, I bought a barely-used Benelli M2. A 12 gauge, it is 6 pounds, 14 ounces, with a 26-inch barrel and slightly butt-heavy balance;  everything I supposedly dislike in a waterfowl gun.  And I love it. I’ve been hunting with it since our duck season opened last week and leaving my 8 ½ pound, 30-inch barreled BPS in the gun cabinet. The M2 rides lightly slung over my shoulder when I’m burdened down with decoys; the shorter barrel and butt heavy balance haven’t yet prevented me from killing nearly every duck I’ve shot at.  With reasonable loads – 1 ¼ ounces of shot at 1450 fps – it doesn’t kick too badly.  A light, compact waterfowl gun can be a joy, and I was wrong ever to say otherwise.

***

Recently I literally ate some crow, too, as in, I cooked and ate one. See photo.

My friend Mike killed the bird while we were duck hunting.  I had never actually seen a crow shot before and the idea of leaving it in the field bothered me, so I brought it home along with my ducks.

I had always been curious about eating crow. My copy of “Cooking Wild Game” by Frank Ashbrook and Edna Sater states: “ . . . some strong champions of crow meat are coming to the front with proved claims of its excellence. They state that unwarranted prejudice alone prevents many sportsmen from hunting them with an eye or thought to their table qualities.” I should note that “Cooking Wild Game” was published by the US Fish and Wildlife Service  in 1945, to encourage consumption of wild animals of all kinds (up to and including opossums*, sparrows and skunks)  to free up beef, pork and poultry for the war effort.

I breasted the bird, yielding two small medallions of red meat. I marinated them in Italian dressing overnight, then broiled them rare with some pepper jack cheese melted on top. It was really quite good. The meat was very much like duck, but tenderer .  Unfortunately, no matter how good it was, I couldn’t quite get my mind past the fact that it was crow meat.  I doubt I’ll do it again. But, I satisfied my curiosity, kept the bird from going to waste, and did my bit to smash the Axis, even if it was 64 years too late.
 
* ”Opossum with Tomato Sauce” and “Opossum Stuffing” are just two of the tempting recipes in the opossum section

That’s me with skeet shooter Chiara Cainero at dinner in Brescia, Italy. She is holding her gold medal from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which she won in a three-way shootoff in the rain.

Cainero shoots way better than she speaks English, and I shoot better than I speak Italian (which is not saying much), but we were still able to talk about how she trained to deal with Olympic pressure.

She shoots only 100-300 rounds a day, which is low for an elite shooter. But, she told me she does lots of visualization. Visualization lets you practice without ever picking up a gun. You picture yourself at the range, and imagine setting up for the target, going through your pre-shot routine, calling for the bird, seeing it, and making a good move and crushing it. The more detail you can work into your mental images, the more effective your mental training becomes.  Visualization conditions your mind and body to perform, even in the heat of a three way shootoff on your sport’s biggest stage.

Visualization is an important training method and top athletes like Carineo take it very seriously. It’s much more than merely daydreaming about hearing your national anthem with a medal around your neck.

 “When I visualize, I think about shooting in the Olympics. But I don’t think about winning,” she said. “I think about breaking targets in the Oympics.”
Evidently  it works.

Last week we speculated on Beretta’s new Xplor, a gun capable, we were told, of taking anything up to and including a dinosaur. Having just seen and shot the Xplor in Italy, I would amend that statement to read “up to and including a small dinosaur.” The A400 Xplor is a 3 ½ inch semiautomatic shotgun. It is  probably enough gun for velociraptors, but way too small for brachiosaurus or T Rex hunting, even with slugs.

On one hand, I was slightly disappointed the Xplor didn’t turn out to be something more radical, but mostly, I was very pleased to see, handle and shoot the next generation of the excellent  A391 semiauto.  Actually, the A400 Xplor is a hybrid of the best features of  the 391 and the Xtrema, with several improvements thrown in for good measure.
Highlights of the Xplor include:

A redesigned gas system that will go much longer between cleanings than the already unstoppable 391 and Xtrema systems. Beretta says test guns have cycled as many as 10,000 rounds without cleaning.

A 3 ½ receiver that is no longer than a 3-inch receiver, making this a compact gun. One of the complaints about the Xtrema was that it was hefty and bulky. This gun is neither; it feels like a 391 and is a little lighter than its predecessor.

A bolt return spring that fits over the magazine tube a la Xtrema instead of inside the stock. A spring on the tube is easy to access and keep clean.

An improved, optional version of the very effective Kick-Off recoil reducer. The Xplor doesn’t beat you up.

Modern  -- but not space-age -- styling, and a receiver that is anodized to a distinctive gray-green color.  It’s a good-looking gun.

The Xplor cycles very quickly.  As you can see in the picture* the shooter has four empties in the air at once.  Beretta claims the Xplor cycles 36% faster than any other semiauto on the market. Personally, I can’t work my trigger finger fast enough to outrun any autoloader, but some people can.

One last bit of good news: although  most workers were out on a scheduled strike on Friday when I toured the plant (Beretta is in Italy, after all). I saw rows and rows of finished Xplors ready to ship. The 3 1/2- inch , wood stocked versions will be out next month, with synthetic waterfowl guns and a sporting gun to follow soon. The Xplor lists for around $1600 in 3 ½-inch versions. Three-inch guns should list for $100 or so less.

*the picture is the better of two provided by Beretta for use before the gun’s official release on November 1. Although we journalists took lots of pictures in Italy, Beretta asked us to promise not to publish them until October 30.