Field and Stream - Shooting Tips RSS

Shooting Clays: Field Stocks vs. Target Stocks

Online Editors — Mon, 14 May 2012 16:35:43 -0400

by Phil Bourjaily

As I mentioned previously, raising the comb of a field gun with moleskin or a slip-on comb pad makes it work better for clay target shooting--especially trap. The question arose in the comments to that post: Why should guns have different stock dimensions for clays or birds, seeing as how both are flying targets? Good question.

The gun in the picture is a Remington 1100 trap gun. I bought it (for $250. Score!) from a friend who used it as his duck gun for many years. It’s the gun I give to any kid who is having trouble hitting trap targets, especially kids who are struggling to hit trap targets with a field gun.

It has a stock that is straighter than a field stock but not aggressively high (1-3/8” at the comb, 1-3/4” at the heel). For most people, it shoots just high enough that you have to see the whole bird over the barrel to hit it. I believe it’s a lot easier to hit birds (whether clay or feathered) when you see them, rather than when you have to cover them with the barrel.

So, why aren’t all guns stocked this way?

I have no answers, only theories.

Here’s one: since so much of target shooting is done with a premounted gun, you have an opportunity to wriggle your cheek down onto the stock of, say, a trap gun. In the field, on the other hand, you throw the gun up hastily and rarely cheek it as firmly as you would on the target field. Therefore a field gun needs a lower comb to compensate for the fact that most people don’t have time to “get down” on it.

The man I bought the 1100 from was a serious sporting clays shooter. He has practiced his gun mounting enough that it was consistent, whether he was shooting ducks or clays with the 1100. For him, a gun with a target stock was perfect for hunting. Your mileage may vary, as they say, but it’s something to think about.

Shotgun Tip: Raise the Comb on Your Field Gun for Trap

Dave_Maccar — Mon, 07 May 2012 11:43:50 -0400

by Phil Bourjaily

I have posted this picture before but it gets a repost for good reason. It’s spring, and for many of you summer trap league is right around the corner. A lot of hunters shoot league trap with their field guns purely for fun and to hit more birds in the fall, and that’s great. However, you will shoot much higher scores (and get even better practice, as high scores beget confidence, and confidence makes good shooters) if you raise the comb of your stock a quarter-inch or so. A slightly elevated comb raises the gun’s point of impact, allowing you to see the target instead of having to cover it up with the barrel of your gun to hit it.

It’s simply easier to hit birds you can see.

That’s not to say it’s impossible to shoot good scores with a field gun. You can. I’ve done it, and seen it done a lot. But, it’s a difficult way to shoot clays, and what often happens is, eventually, the good shooter with a field gun starts to miss and doesn’t know why. Then he or she bears down, squishing their face even harder on the comb, which just makes the target even harder to see. A cycle of frustration, madness and despair follows.

Last night at practice I asked one of our shooters, who has been struggling, if he would let me use him for a guinea pig. I pulled the Beartooth products’ Comb Raising Kit onto his gun at the start of a round. He immediately broke his first 25 straight of the season. He’s a good shot. He had just been bearing down so hard he couldn’t see the targets.

Shotgun Tip: Staying In The Zone

Online Editors — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:50:27 -0400

by Phil Bourjaily

Talk to good shotgun shooters, and they will tell you they get “in the Zone” where targets look as big as trashcan lids and birds seem to fly in slow motion. I get in the Zone sometimes, but the difference between ordinary pretty good shots like me and really good shooters is that the champions can find the Zone regularly and stay in it. For me, being in the Zone is a fragile state.

I had cause to reflect on this these last few days as we filmed Gun Nuts, Season III. Having two camera men depending on me to hit targets helps me focus. It’s just the right amount of pressure and it often puts me in the Zone. In the picture here (actually taken last season) I am breaking a trap target with a camera on my gun. I broke 103x105 trap targets that day, about half with a camera on my gun blocking my view of the target. I was In the Zone.

This season, when the Wolf Creek Production guys cranked the cameras us I got right back into the Zone. I missed exactly one target before lunch the first day and we set up some stuff like a “grouse in the woods” shot that were pretty difficult. I crushed them all.

However, when I fall out of the Zone while we’re filming, I melt down completely. It happens two or three times each Gun Nuts season. That same afternoon we filmed a segment about sporting clays guns that required me to shoot a very easy double on a pair of looping targets. I broke enough of them for the segment – thankfully – but then I missed the closer, easier target, and that was it. My Zone evaporated. The target was 15 yards away and hanging in front of me. I missed it again and again. I would have had a better chance of hitting it if I threw shells at it. Shotgun shooting is a funny thing which is why I find it so interesting.

I am also grateful for the magic of editing. We will not be doing a “Gun Nuts Live” show if I have anything to say about it.

Trap Shooting Tip: Look at the Bottom Edge

Online Editors — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 13:45:22 -0400

by Phil Bourjaily

I have given a lot of shooting advice to a lot of high school kids on our trap team in the past four years. If you threw out 99.9 percent of what I’ve told them, trap can be boiled down to two things: “Keep your head on the stock” and “focus on the bottom edge of the target.”

The former is obvious, since we have all been told forever that your eye is the rear sight of a shotgun. The latter, however, works wonders, and it surprises me every time it does. Looking at the bottom of the target should be wrong because trap targets are rising. But from what I have seen, far more targets are missed over the top than underneath. For whatever reason, people who don’t lock their eyes onto targets usually miss over the top.

The bottom edge of an outgoing target is distinct and easy to see. While I generally dislike the word “aim” in conjunction with shotgun shooting, the saying “aim small, miss small” applies here. If you look at a small part of a target (or the head of a gamebird) that’s what you will hit.

Last night at practice, one of our novices was mostly missing or chipping the few he hit. At first, I could see his barrel slowing as it got to the bird -- one sign the shooter is looking at the bead. I told him not to worry about hitting the target; just to look at it. He kept missing, but at least the barrel wasn’t stopping anymore, so I knew he was looking at the clay.

“What part of the target are you looking at?”

“The top,” he said.

“Try looking at the bottom,” I told him.

Then he started center-punching targets until I stopped handing him shells. Shooting a shotgun is easy when you look hard at the target.

A Brief Rant On Mounting Shotguns

Online Editors — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:59:55 -0400

by Phil Bourjaily

Last weekend I took a National Sporting Clays Association class for my Level I instructor certification. It was a wonderful experience, I learned a ton, and I’ll be writing a column about it in the magazine in the future.

However, since this blog space is supposed to contain “rantings and ravings” let me take the only complaint I have about the class and run with it. We did not learn to teach students how to shoot from a low-gun, unmounted start. Sporting Clays--once called “Hunter’s Clays”--used to be about hunting practice, just as skeet (another game that has abandoned the low-gun start) was. American sporting clays rules now allow a premounted gun as in trap and skeet. Unless you shoot international skeet or FITASC which do require a low-gun, there is no need to learn how to mount a shotgun.

Obviously if, like me, you shoot clay target games primarily as hunting practice, you can shoot with a low gun if you feel like it, and I do for skeet and sporting clays. The problem is, learning to mount a shotgun efficiently often takes teaching.

The first time I had a shooting lesson I had just turned 40 and had been hunting for a long time. The instructor watched me mount the gun, shook his head in a sad but kindly manner, and started me over from the ground up. He taught me how to move the muzzle to the target as I raised the gun to my face and shoot as the butt touched my shoulder. It’s a very efficient way to shoot birds, and I am grateful for that lesson, which made me a much better shot on game. My concern is that fewer and fewer people will receive such lessons if all the emphasis among shooting instructors is teaching sporting clays.

One of the best things about sporting clays has been that it has popularized shooting instruction, but now, because of the change in the rules of the game, those instructors no longer teach one of the most important skills of field shooting.

The Gun Nut Nation Survey 2012

Dave_Maccar — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:42:59 -0400

Sound off, Gun Nuts. Tell us what you love about today’s rifles and shotguns. Tell us what you hate most about the perception of gun owners in the media. Tell us about your hopes and fears concerning a certain election this November. Tell us about what makes you a Gun Nut in the following survey—a collection of questions about the politics, economics, and state of Gun Nut Nation. The results will be published in the July 2012 issue of Field & Stream. Thank you for participating.

How to Fix Your Kid's Bad Shotgunning Habits

Dave_Maccar — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 10:09:32 -0400

by Phil Bourjaily

When you taught your son or daughter to shoot a shotgun, you meant well, but you probably taught some bad habits. That’s a harsh statement, but it’s the only conclusion I can draw after coaching high school trap for the past three years. Kids join our program as ninth graders, and most come to us with bad habits fully formed. They aim. They flinch. They lean back. They miss many birds and targets.

However, an ounce (but definitely not 11⁄8 ounce) of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If you have kids to start, here are five pitfalls to avoid. If you have already gotten off to a bad beginning, the sooner you undo the damage, the better.

Mistake #1: Starting Too Young
How It Shows: Kids who aren’t big enough to hold a shotgun yet bend backward to support its weight. Ingrained habits die hard: I have seen 6-foot-tall 17-year-old boys lean back and heave a gun to their shoulder as if it weighed 50 pounds.

The Right Way: It’s natural to want to get kids shooting as young as possible, but they should be at least 5 feet tall and 80 pounds, and/or over the age of 10. I started my sons at 11 and 12, and even then we took frequent breaks.

Have kids stand nearly square to the target, feet no more than shoulder width apart. Tell them to think “nose over toes” so they lean slightly forward with a little more than half their weight on their front foot. Leaning into the gun lets your body absorb recoil.

Mistake #2: Using a Gun That Hurts
How It Shows: Kids will snatch the gun down off their shoulder as soon as they pull the trigger to get the source of pain away from their face. Some will jerk their head up off the stock or even close both eyes.

The Right Way: Both 870 Express and Mossberg 500 youth models are good, kid-size first guns, but they are very light and deliver a sharp rap of recoil with standard loads. Either reload some 3⁄4-ounce practice ammo or buy Winchester Winlite or Fiocchi’s mild 1045-fps, 3⁄4-ounce Trainer loads for your young shooter.

You have to watch kids carefully for signs of recoil fatigue because some won’t admit the gun hurts. When your kids outgrow their youth gun, buy nothing heavier than 1180-fps target loads for 12-gauge practice.

Mistake #3: Shooting From the Wrong Side
How It Shows: Shooting with one eye shut, or cocking the head at an angle over the stock to use the off-side eye, is a sign that a shooter is right-handed and left-eyed, or vice versa.

The Right Way: Teach kids to shoot from the dominant side from the start. Give them an eye dominance test. Watch carefully and test both eyes; some kids will cheat. A rare few are truly center--dominant or “both-eyed.” They will need a spot of tape over the eye on the off side of their glasses to block that eye’s view of the barrel. Everyone else should shoot from the dominant-eye side. Period. My left-eyed right-handed older son has never fired a gun off his right shoulder in his life and he does very well in the field. I’ve made kids who already have shot from the wrong side switch to the correct one, and they pick it up surprisingly quickly.

Mistake #4: Aiming a Shotgun Like a Rifle
How It Shows: Kids “ride” targets trying to see a perfect bead-target alignment. They shoot too late because they stopped the gun to check the lead.

The Right Way: Start kids with shotguns before they shoot rifles. It is much easier, I believe, for a shotgunner to learn to aim a rifle than it is for a rifle shooter to learn not to aim a shotgun. Stress shooting with both eyes open, and pulling the trigger the instant the shooter is on target. Since it’s possible to aim at straightaway targets with fair success, include crossers and incomers in your practice sessions.

Mistake #5: Mounting to the Shoulder First
How It Shows: A kid shoulders the gun, squishes his or her head down onto the stock, then looks for the target. Bad gun mounts are the result of practicing only with a premounted gun.

The Right Way: Let kids take their first few shots with a mounted gun, but make learning to start from a gun-down position a goal of your training sessions. The gun mount should be the swing: The muzzle moves to the target as the stock comes up, and you trigger the shot as soon as the butt meets your shoulder.

On days you don’t shoot, have them practice 10 to 15 gun mounts with an unloaded gun under your supervision, pushing the muzzle to the target as they raise the comb to their face. They may not get straight A’s at school, but if they do their shotgunning homework, they will learn to shoot straight, which is almost as important.

A Call for Shotgun Questions

Dave_Maccar — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:04:19 -0400

by Phil Bourjaily

Season III of “The Gun Nuts” is in production. As you can see from the video, on one episode our intrepid traveling host/reporter Eddie Nickens goes deep inside the Remington factory to learn its innermost secrets. Can Eddie hit the 200 yard target without glancing a few shots off the tunnel walls? Tune in to find out. It is going to be a fun season.

We will be introducing some new segments and bringing back some favorites, including reader questions. Once again I need you to send me your shotgun questions.

Those readers whose questions I answer on the air will again receive the extremely spiffy and hard to come by Gun Nuts hats Eddie, Dave and I wear on the show. Winning questions will be those that:

a.) I know the answer to
b.) Make for good TV

Let’s have them, and thanks in advance for helping out with Season III.

Shotgun Tip: What to Look at When You Lead a Target

Dave_Maccar — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 13:43:41 -0500

by Phil Bourjaily

My video post about how to shoot crossing targets provoked confusion, discussion and disagreement on the subject of exactly what you look at when you lead a target. Do you look at the target while the gun moves in front of it, or do you look down the rib somewhere in front of the target?

Both methods have their proponents.

Some believe you have to be looking down the rib the correct distance in front of the bird when you lead a target because the only place a properly mounted gun will shoot is where you are looking. Nash Buckingham, famous outdoor writer and equally famous long range shot, said that when he shot a crossing duck he imagined an invisible moving spot in front of it and shot at that. That’s as concise a definition of the “look in front” theory as you’ll hear.

The other method is to keep a tight focus on the target and let the gun barrel move in front of it, although the gun itself stays on your face. Gil and and Vicki Ash of the OSP school and others teach this style. Your eyes stay glued on the bird’s beak or the target’s front edge and the muzzle goes ahead of the target as a blur in your peripheral vision.

I used to lead targets by shooting at the imaginary spot. For me, it didn’t work well. I have found that harder focus on the target is the solution to 90% of my shotgunning problems. Also, I spend very little time looking down the rib during a shot. My eye is on the target and the muzzle is moving past it as I bring the stock to my face. I’m pulling the trigger as the stock touches my shoulder.

But, that’s what works for me. Your mileage, like Mr. Buck’s, may vary.

Shotgun Tip: The Right Way to Take a Crossing Shot

Online Editors — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 11:33:02 -0500

by Phil Bourjaily

The video shows the right and wrong way to take crossing shots. Mounting the gun ahead of the bird and pulling the trigger immediately is the easiest, best way to shoot crossers. When shots are as close as these brant are to the blinds all you have to do is look at the beak and shoot.

Riding the bird, that is, swinging with it to make sure, is the best way to miss a crosser. Once you’re on target, shoot. Your chances don’t get any better if you try to refine your lead, they get worse. Your eyes drift back to the gun to check your lead and the gun slows or stops altogether.

The segment with the shooter missing shows that what happens when you ride a target, and it also shows a very common occurrence: you miss by being too careful, then think “oh no, it’s getting away” move the gun as you should have in the first place and make the shot. I’ve done it a million times, and you probably have, too.

Good Gun Gear: DryFire Simulator

Online Editors — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:06:24 -0500

by Phil Bourjaily

Our high school trap club recently bought a DryFire laser shooting simulator and already I am a believer. A device that eliminates the noise, recoil and expense of live fire makes huge sense as a teaching aid.

For instance, we took a senior who had never shot a gun and taught him the basics with the DryFire. He shot two rounds of laser trap a few days before his first trip to the range.

We started him on straightaway clays first at the gun club, and then let him try a full round of 16-yard trap. First time he broke 7x25. After another session on the DryFire, he broke 22x25 on real targets the following Saturday. I have never seen a kid climb the learning curve that quickly. He gets a lot of the credit, but so does the DryFire.

The unit consists of an oscillating head that projects a dot onto a mural and a laser arbor that fits into the muzzle of your gun. A button that fires the laser straps onto the trigger. You plug the system into a laptop and it shows the result of every shot immediately. When you shoot with proper form and keep your eyes on the laser dot, you hit it. When you make a mistake that would cost you a real target, you miss, as you can see when you watch the guy on the video struggle with right-angled birds.

Although DryFire can also be set up for trap doubles, bunker trap, skeet and Sporting Clays, from what I have seen so far, it is best for trap. Initial software installation took time, and there is some setup and recalibration involved if you switch guns, but overall, it has been money very well spent. You can buy a single unit for $1,050 and set it up in your home. While that may seem like a lot, it really isn’t when you compare it to the cost of gas, targets and ammunition for a day at the range.

Clay Target Guys Can't Hit Feathers...Or Can They?

Online Editors — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:33:36 -0500

by Phil Bourjaily

I have heard a lot of hunters say “Take those clay target guys hunting and they can’t hit a thing.” I’ll disagree. Most good clay shots are good field shots, too. The best display of field shooting I have ever seen was put on by Sporting Clays champion Andy Duffy over the course of the two days we hunted grouse together in Minnesota a few years ago.

But, there are adjustments to make when you switch from clay to feathers. After a summer of practice at skeet and sporting clays, I shoot too far in front of real birds at first. Why it happens I don’t know. Maybe it’s the optical illusion presented by clay targets moving faster than they appear to be. Whatever the case, clay targets often require more lead than you think they should, while real birds often need less.

I’m not the only one with that problem. My predecessor Bob Brister--a great shot--used to write about shooting too far in front of birds at the beginning of the season. I saw a perfect example on the last day of goose season last month. I took my friend Peter, who graduated high school five years ago with my older son. Peter had a terrific Sporting Clays season last year, making a spot on Iowa’s All-State team, but he didn't have time to hunt much this fall, so he was still in clay mode when we put out the goose spread.

Long story short, I killed a goose out of a trio that split off a larger flock and was out retrieving it when the two survivors circled back and flew about ten yards high over Peter’s blind. He hesitated, because he is polite and I wasn't there. I screamed “Shoot those geese!” so he lead them too much, shot three times, and they flew away.

Naturally, I was sympathetic. I said, “You clay target guys can’t hit a real bird, can you?”-- a remark I will no doubt pay for on the sporting clays course this summer.

Olympic Medalist Kim Rhode on Prep for London Games

Online Editors — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:40:43 -0500

Kim Rhode will be competing in the Olympic Skeet event in 2012, where she hopes to break an Olympic record by winning five medals in five different Olympic Games. She talks with Phil Bourjaily about her practice routine and prep work leading up to the London games.

Do-All Outdoors: Have Fun Shooting These Targets

Online Editors — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:30:35 -0500

Bored shooting the same targets over and over? Try blasting an orange prairie dog or any of these reusable targets from Do-All Outdoors.

Pro Ears ReVO: Hearing Protection Designed For Young Shooters

Dave_Maccar — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:11:49 -0500

This set of ears was designed for youth shooters from the ground up, rather than modifying an existing design. The ear pads are specially shaped to eliminate gaps in the seal around the ear near the jawline on smaller heads.

More on Long Range Shooting

Sarah Smith — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:30:40 -0500

by David E. Petzal

Back in April, 2011, I became a probationary member of the Scarborough Fish & Game Association in Scarborough, Maine. The name notwithstanding, SF&G is a shooting club, and a very large, very active one at that. They stage just about every kind of rifle, shotgun, handgun and archery event you can think of, and there is a dedicated range for cops to practice shooting people (so if you have any wants and warrants outstanding, stay away).

Among their assets is a beautiful range with shooting points from 100 to 600 yards, but since the Association’s official religion is safety, they do not let anyone use that range until they’re vetted. You qualify there or you stick to the 100-yard ranges; SF&G does not want any bullets sailing over the backstop. If you raise your muzzle above the level of the backstop you get a warning. If you do it again you are requested to leave.

The 600-yard hopefuls are split into two squads; one pulls targets while the other shoots, and then they switch. You can use any rifle you choose, any scope, or iron sights, and since this is a qualification and not a competition, you can use a bipod or sandbags or a mechanical rest.

All the shooting is done from prone. You start at 100 yards to check your zero, then you move back to 200 and fire five shots for record. All five have to be on target or you go home. The highest possible score is 50. Then you move back to 600 and get to fire a few sighters, after which you make whatever corrections you need and shoot five shots for record. Same rules—every bullet has to score or you get to slink off.

There are half a dozen coaches, all experienced over-the-course competitors to whom this is old stuff. They score you, and will give you advice if you ask for it, but otherwise they leave you on your own because they want to see if you have the knowledge and equipment to get the job done.

For my trial by fire I used a Shaw Mark VII .30/06 with a Bushnell Elite 6500 scope with a mil-dot reticle. Ammo was handloads—155-grain Berger VLD bullets at 2,840 fps. I also used a short Harris bipod. The only question in my military mind was which dot to use to get in the black at 600 yards. Through a mixture of Euclidian geometry, trigonometry, basic physics, consultation with ballistic tables, The Book of Kjells, prayer, fasting, and a whiny call to Kenny Jarrett, I determined that the fourth dot down would get me into the promised land, or at least my bullet would go there.

We had a beautiful calm morning with only a 2 mph breeze, and my first shot went into the eight ring at 2 o’clock. I needed to come left half the width of the eight ring, so I put in enough clicks to do that, and then I had to come down about six inches, so I did that. The next shot was a 10, so it was time to shoot for record.

I ended up with a 45x50—two 10s, a 9, and two 8s. This was good enough to qualify, but in competition it would get you looks of pity and contempt. The guy for whom I was pulling the target shot 50x50-4X, which means he put four out of 5 shots in 6 inches at six football fields. I wish I had the chance to find out what he was shooting, but was able to learn only that it was one of the 6.5s.

A final note: The shooter to my left, who was using an AR, asked me what that huge cartridge was in my ammo block. “A .30/06,” I said, and smiled, because when the old ’06 qualifies as a huge cartridge, we’ve come a long, long way.

Thoughts on Stock Length

Online Editors — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:25:24 -0500

by Phil Bourjaily

How long should your gunstock be and how much does stock length really matter?

The Beretta 391 in the picture came with spacers allowing me to alter the length. I made it 15 inches for shooting in T-shirt weather back in dove season, intending to remove a spacer to accommodate bulky waterfowling clothes. Instead, I left it and never noticed the extra length.

As long as you mount the gun by pushing it out toward the target, you can shoot a longer stock than you might think you can without tangling it up in your hunting coat. The advantage to a longer stock, I think, is that it makes a gun mount smoother. If I mount this gun correctly, bringing it to my face, the stock just meets my shoulder without my having to pull the gun back into my shoulder pocket, possibly pulling the muzzle off target as I do so.

On the other hand, sometimes I wonder how much stock length matters. I could always shoot my son’s 13-inch youth stocked 1100 pretty well. As long as you aren’t punching yourself in the nose with the thumb of your shooting hand, maybe stock length doesn’t matter.

It was, and may still be, a trend among some sporting clays shooters to shoot absurdly long stocks. I have seen people my height (6 feet) shoot guns with a length of pull as much as 17 inches. I could sort of shoot their guns if I mounted them first, but I couldn’t mount them from a low gun start at all.

A Project for 2012

Sarah Smith — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 14:59:58 -0500

by David E. Petzal

A little while back I spent an hour at the range helping a friend of mine mount a scope and get a rifle sighted in for his young son. Everything worked, and dad took the boy to Pennsylvania to hunt deer. As it turned out, they didn’t get one, but the father was nice enough to send me a photo of the kid in his stand, and the expression of joy on his face is unmistakable. I e-mailed my friend that whether or not his son goes on to be a serious hunter, that deer hunt will be pure gold for the rest of the boy’s life.

Small contributions like this can make a very big difference. If you are a hunter/shooter with some experience, there is a beginning hunter/shooter out there who can use your help. These are not easy sports to break into; there is an immense amount to learn. Questions lead to other questions, and the number of people who have the answers is shrinking.

Whatever I’ve gained from the shooting sports, I’ve gotten because someone invited me hunting, or gave me a pointer on how to shoot, or invited me into his shop to show me how guns work. I could never repay these people directly, but I’ve done so indirectly by trying to do for others what they did for me. You can do the same.

For 2012, help someone get started.

Have a Happy New Year.

Ohio Man Shoots Amish Girl While Cleaning Gun

Sarah Smith — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 11:02:41 -0500

by Phil Bourjaily

This story out of Fredericksburg, Ohio serves as a freakish, tragic reminder that the only place to shoot a rifle is into a safe backstop. Fifteen-year-old Rachel Yoder was driving her buggy home when she was struck in the head by a muzzleloader bullet apparently fired a mile and a half away, by a man “cleaning” his gun who had fired it into the air. That the bullet landed where it did defies probability, but that doesn’t change the fact that it happened and cannot be undone.

While no one knowingly cleans a loaded gun, it is common for blackpowder hunters to unload their rifles at the end of a hunt by shooting them. Perhaps that’s what happened here, and if so, in an instant of carelessness someone ended a young girl’s life and ruined his own.

Be careful in 2012.

Jingle Bells With a 1911

Sarah Smith — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 12:48:01 -0500

Happy Holidays from the Gun Nuts!

When Good Guns Happen to Stupid People

Sarah Smith — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:37:46 -0500

by Phil Bourjaily

Spend enough time surfing the internet and you will see horrible sights. This video is one.

During last week’s discussion of the Benelli Montefeltro, the Winchester Model 50’s name came up. Thinking it would be interesting to write about the Model 50*, I went looking on Youtube in search of a video illustrating the gun’s unique action. Unfortunately, the video here is what I found instead. It’s probably better that some readers (Tom from Cody, I’m thinking of you) don’t watch this at all. This is a gun project so horribly wrong-headed I almost didn’t get through to the end of the clip myself.

The guy who posted this says someone gave him this Model 50 as a gift and, since he “doesn’t hunt yet” he modified it to use as a tactical gun, until he could afford “a proper tactical shotgun” such as an 870 or Mossberg 590. All he has done is wreck a neat old hunting gun in the name of having a stopgap tactical gun. And, for the price of the sights, heat shield and shell holder, he could have paid for about half of an 870 Express while keeping his Model 50 intact. Someday, if he does take up hunting, he finally will realize what he has done.

*The Model 50 is an interesting gun, made in the 1950s and early 1960s with an inertia system that featured the floating chamber developed by David “Carbine” Williams that actually moved almost a tenth of an inch under recoil. (The first guns could be fired without a barrel attached, causing concern at the federal law enforcement level. Winchester modified the gun so it could not shoot without a barrel attached). Winchester made both a steel and an alloy “Featherlight” receiver version, and the gun formed the basis for the great and weird steel and fiberglass-barreled Model 59. Winchester made a couple hundred thousand of them, and while the gun wasn’t a huge success, Model 50s still show up regularly in used gun racks which is a testament to their durability.

If Pheasant Hunting Was My Job

Dave_Maccar — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 13:17:29 -0500

by Phil Bourjaily

Fortunately, I hunt pheasants for fun and can shoot them with whatever gun I please. And, just as fortunately, market hunting for pheasants is illegal. However, if hunting pheasants was my job and I was paid by the head of roosters I killed:

a.) I would be going broke this year in Iowa.

b.) I would put aside my double guns and shoot my Benelli Montefeltro.

The Benelli is such a perfect ringneck gun. Sometimes I wish I didn't own it because there is no good reason to take any of my other guns pheasant hunting as long as I have it.*

Consider:

It is a 12 gauge. 16s are nearly the equal of 12s and 20s are surprisingly effective, but the 12 gauge outperforms the 16 and 20 with lead, and beats them by a wide margin with steel. 12 gauge ammo costs less and is available everywhere.

It is a semiautomatic. While it is true I can only remember killing one bird with a third shot in 30 years of pheasant hunting, it’s also true that when I hunt with a semiauto, the gun is never empty and broken open for reloading at exactly the time another bird flushes as it is with O/Us and my double.

It is light. Although my Benelli is a 12 with a 28-inch barrel it weighs only 6 pounds, 13 ounces – less than many 20 gauges on the market. It’s light enough to be easy to carry all day, but it has enough weight forward that it moves smoothly to the target. The light weight combined with 12 gauge semiauto firepower is what makes it perfect for pheasant hunting.

It is an inertia gun. Not only are inertia guns reliable, they have no bulky rings or pistons or any other gas system parts up front, just the magazine tube. As a result they have very slender forearms, making them sit low in your front hand and point naturally.

It reduces recoil somewhat. I definitely notice the Benelli kicks less than a double gun on those rare occasions I shoot heavy, high velocity (1500 fps) pheasant loads.

As a side benefit, it’s a handsome gun, too, and mine came with very nice wood. That matters, because even if I hunted pheasants for a living, I would still want to look good on the job.

*Second choice might be a worn-slick 870 Wingmaster from the late 70s or early 80s when they really knew how to make them. I’d want one with a fixed choke barrel, as those tend to have thinner barrel walls and be lighter and livelier guns than the new 870s.

Finally, The Secret To Reducing Felt Recoil

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 12:32:56 -0500

by Phil Bourjaily

Some of the comments to the “Top Five Softest Kicking Semi-auto Shotguns” post dealt with the concept of “recoil” versus “perceived recoil” or “kick.” Recoil, as I mentioned, is purely a mathematical construct. Kick deals with the interaction of shooter and the recoil of the gun, and how painfully that recoil is delivered.

Shooter’s stance, grip, pain threshold and many other factors determine how much a gun kicks. So do recoil attenuation devices like recoil pads and muzzle brakes. Stock fit also plays a part. As some of you mentioned previously, even a seemingly unrelated factor like muzzle blast can contribute to the feeling that a gun kicks. That’s one of the reasons I always wear ear plugs and ear muffs to the range.

The two videos below illustrate the difference between recoil and perceived recoil graphically. The guns are identical Browning BARs, a gas-operated semiauto said to be fairly soft-shooting. For the purposes of this exercise, we will assume them to be of the same caliber, and assume that the scopes, slings, and other accessories are of identical weight. Therefore, they would each generate exactly the same amount of recoil.

The first shooter apparently feels very little kick, as he delivers four shots quickly without flinching.

The second shooter feels so much kick he is almost knocked to the ground, even though he is shooting the same type of gun generating the same recoil. How can this be?

It could just be the difference the two shooter’s grips. But if you look closely, you’ll see the shooter at the bench is wearing earplugs, taming the muzzleblast and reducing the perceived recoil. The second shooter* is not wearing hearing protection, so he perceives much more recoil. There’s your answer.

*I have come close to posting this video in the past, but always chose not to because it portrays very irresponsible use of firearms. If you are offended, I apologize. However, it does make the point about the difference between recoil and kick perfectly, and since I had a semi-valid reason to post it, I decided to put it up.

The Top 5 Softest Kicking Semi-Auto Shotguns

Dave_Maccar — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 09:18:03 -0500

by Phil Bourjaily

Whenever I post about semiauto shotguns, the subject of recoil reduction and which gun shoots the softest comes up.

Strictly speaking, semiautos don’t reduce recoil. Recoil is a function of the weight of the ejecta (shot, wad and powder) weight, the velocity of the ejecta and the weight of the gun. You can reduce recoil by shooting a heavier gun, or choosing lighter shot charges and/or lower velocity ammunition.

However, semiautos reduce felt recoil (aka “kick”) by spreading the recoil impulse out over a longer period of time. Generally speaking, gas operated semiautos offer the most recoil reduction although not all reduce felt recoil equally. Here’s my list of the softest shooters. Your shoulder may disagree with mine. For instance, I shoot Beretta 391s a lot and like them, but I don’t think they reduce recoil as much as do other gas guns. I also think Benelli’s inertia guns get a bad rap for recoil and aren’t that painful to shoot unless you insist on firing 3 ½-inch shells out of them at which point they hurt, because they are light guns. Anyway, here are my picks:

Honorable Mention: Benelli M4 Not a sporting gun, Benelli’s gas operated combat shotgun is very soft kicking. I have only fired one once but when I did I emptied an extended magazine-full of high velocity buckshot and was surprised how little it kicked and how easy it was to keep on target.

5. Winchester Super X2: the whole Browning and Winchester Gold/Silver/Maxus/Super X2/Super X3 family are almost as soft-shooting as Remington 1100/11-87s. The X2 always felt the mildest to me because it weighed more than any of the others.

4. Beretta A400: With the optional Kick-Off recoil reduction system, the A400 (especially the heavier Extreme waterfowl gun) comes close to being the softest shooter. Without Kick-Off, no so much.

3. Remington 1100/11-87: The 1100/11-87 series are heavy guns with a gas system that reduces recoil noticeably more than almost any other. The 1100 is the original soft-shooting gas gun. Almost 50 years after its introduction it’s still among the most pleasant of semiautos to shoot.

2. (tie) 10 Gauge Gas Guns: The Browning Gold 10 and Remington SP 10 weigh 10-11 ½ recoil-soaking pounds, feature gas operation, and don’t hurt in the least to shoot. Pull the trigger, and you feel a gentle but powerful push, as if a giant has laid a finger on your shoulder while asking you to take a step backward. When my younger son was 12 I let him shoot a bunch of clays with an SP 10 and hunting loads. He giggled at the way the targets disintegrated but the gun didn’t hurt.

And the winner is:

1.Remington Versa Max: perhaps because it is a heavier (near eight pounds) gun, and because its gas ports are located in the chamber (the system is inspired by Benelli’s M4, see above) where they bleed off a lot of expanding gases quickly, and because it has a very thick recoil pad on the butt and in the comb, the Versa Max is the softest-shooting semiauto I have ever tried. It’s a homely gun, but its powers of felt recoil reduction are astonishing.

Is Improved Cylinder The Do-It-All Choke? Yes and No...

Sarah Smith — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 11:33:56 -0400

by Phil Bourjaily

Years ago at the Remington Shooting School our instructor had us put Improved Cylinder chokes in our guns and shoot springing teal targets. We backed up five steps with every break until the whole class was hitting teal with Improved Cylinder chokes from the Ilion Gun Club parking lot. The point of the lesson was supposed to be that even an open choke like Improved Cylinder can break targets that are very far away, and that therefore, IC is all the choke you ever need.

Yes and no.

The video made by instructor Gil Ash illustrates an interesting point. Each of the color-coded circle cutouts shows the effective pattern of different chokes at five yard increments, starting with light brown representing 10 yards. “Effective” is defined as putting an average of three pellets in an edge-on clay target. The circles are based on patterns Ash shot with 12 gauge target loads.

“Effective pattern” and overall pattern spread are two different things. No matter how wide the whole pattern, the effective part that kills birds and breaks targets reliably is the central portion, where most of the shot is concentrated. As a pattern spreads that center changes size--starting out very small and growing larger, then eventually shrinking as more and more pellets migrate out of the center and spread to the pattern edges.

As shown in the video, IC does have the largest effective spread at 30 yards. However, as it also shows, when distances increase to 35 and 40 yards that effective spread shrinks dramatically.

So, as Ash says, you can break targets at 40 yards (the 40 yard disk is the dark blue one) with an IC pattern if you’re hitting them with that small pattern center. However, notice how much bigger the dark blue disk of the Modified choke is by comparison--Ash doesn’t pick it up, but you can see it behind the other circles in the Modified set. So even though you can break those long targets with an open choke, it’s actually easier to do it with a tighter choke, not because the pattern is “tighter” but because at long range the effective pattern is actually larger.