By Phil Bourjaily

Once a year I shoot my sporting clays gun—a Miroku Charles Daly with 32-inch barrels—on a two-day charity preserve pheasant hunt. The stock is fitted to me and the long, heavy barrels move inevitably to the birds. It’s almost impossible to miss with it.   

Longer barrels are easier to shoot with, especially on any kind of crossing bird. Most of my hunting guns now have 28-inch barrels, which seems like a good compromise length. Of course, barrel wall thickness varies and two guns with 28-inch barrels can have very different balance, but in general they have a little bit of weight forward that makes them easier to shoot. In fact, chances are I will shoot a gun pretty well if I pick it up and it feels too heavy in the muzzle.

By Phil Bourjaily

Well, okay, the Stoeger Longfowler O/U isn’t a “delight” per se, it’s much too crudely finished and heavy for that, but “Turkish Pleasant Surprise” isn’t catchy. Honestly, I didn’t expect to like this gun. It weighs well over eight pounds and sells for less than many pump guns. I figured it would swing with the grace of a railroad tie. My friend Clint, a hardcore duck hunter, had the same preconceived notions I did as we took it out of the box.

By Phil Bourjaily

Because no good idea goes un-copied, today we present the first installment of Gunfight Friday based on (and by “based on” I mean “shamelessly ripped off of”) the Wild Chef’s Food Fight Friday. The format will be eerily similar: You send us pictures of your gun (see below) and write a little about the gun and why you like it for a specific purpose. We’ll pair up two guns, and readers will decide which is their choice. Unlike Food Fight Friday, which sometimes pits, say, venison vs. fish, we’ll try to confine this to guns for similar purposes like, say, elk rifles for black timber or squirrel rifles.

I have wanted to get pictures of readers’ guns onto this blog for a long time, and this seems like a good way to do it. I hope you agree, participate, and enjoy it. Because we don’t have any reader pictures yet, Dave Hurteau and I are going to face off on the first installment, which pits my 20-gauge turkey gun against his.

By Phil Bourjaily

No, that’s not one of the Trapp family singers (that was a pun. Did you see what I did there?), it’s Kassie, a senior from the other high school that shoots at our gun club. She had to make a quick exit from the shoot Saturday to march in the local Maifest parade so she came in costume.

Kassie’s coach asked if it was okay to put her in the first squad with four of our boys so she could get to the parade route on time.