By Philip Bourjaily

I received the invitation you see here from Beretta a few weeks ago. They are introducing a new gun called the Xplor and inviting a couple hundred gun writers from around the world to come to Italy to see it. I'll be there and will get a picture of the new gun back to you as quickly as I can.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out what it is. I asked Beretta's shotgun PR manager what he could tell me about it, and what was up with the dinosaur foot on the invitation. I assumed that meant the gun was rugged, maybe armored like a Benelli Nova or Remington 887.

No, he said, it's a gun that's ready for any kind of game, up to and including a dinosaur.

Aha. I'm thinking it's a single shot shotgun with interchangeable rifle barrels, like a T/C encore. Then I thought some more, and it occurred to maybe, it's an O/U shotgun and you can switch on single shot, scoped rifle barrels. That would be cool: a two barreled gun for birds that converted quickly into an accurate single shot for bigger game. That's my best guess for now. You are all free to... [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal

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... [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal

There is little doubt in my military mind that right now, Talley scope mounts are the best thing out there (unless you’re looking for tactical mounts, in which case you look at Leupold Mark 4s). Talley makes a number of systems, but the one I’m referring to is the Fixed Ring, which is actually the second generation. (The first generation is the Quick-Detachable, which you don’t need unless you have serious iron sights as well as a scope.)

The Fixed Ring system is simplicity itself. Each ring is split vertically and connected at the bottom by a massive honking Torx-head screw and at the top by a second Torx-head screw that honks a little less loudly. The rings fit into bases that have a recoil lug front and back, and they have nowhere to go under recoil. There are no joints anywhere, and when properly torqued down, nothing budges, ever.

I have Talleys on all of my hard-kicking rifles—Fixed-rings on three .338s and a .338 Remington Ultra Mag and QDs on a .416 Remington and a .450 Dakota that will show you visions of the next world after a few... [ Read Full Post ]

By Philip Bourjaily

The responses – mostly negative – to the aesthetics of the Benelli Vinci and a recent reader question about using Modifed choke for turkeys brought back a happy memory: twenty-two years ago next week – April 11, 1987 – I carried a Modified choked Browning Double Automatic into the woods and with it shot my first turkey.

It was the first bird I ever called to and it obligingly hopped off the branch and ran to me, stopping only when I shot it at 35 yards with a short magnum load of 5s. A couple of years passed before I shot another turkey, and by then the Double Auto was gone, replaced briefly by a Model 12, then a Model 97, an A-5, a Browning Pump, two Knight muzzleloaders, and a string of other guns.

I miss that Double Auto sometimes. Besides taking it turkey hunting, I shot a lot of pheasants with it. Also, I have a fondness for odd guns, and it was definitely one of the Browning family’s odder inventions. Designed by John Browning’s son Val, it was introduced in 1955 and, as its name suggested, it was a two-shot semiautomatic

The short-recoil action... [ Read Full Post ]

By Philip Bourjaily

Participating in the Aiming for a Cure celebrity hunt as I did last weekend, is one of the highlights of my spring. Aiming for a Cure is the brainchild of Steve Ries, a German shorthair breeder and trainer. Ries started the hunt six years ago as a benefit for the Pediatric Oncology Department  at the University of Iowa Hospital, where his young son Ben (pictured) was a cancer patient. Since Ben died in 2007, Aiming for a Cure has become his ongoing memorial, which is appropriate for a boy who loved training dogs with his father.

Paying foursomes are teamed with the likes of me (some get real celebrities), then we shoot birds and sporting clays for two days at a local preserve. Saturday night, there’s a Ducks Unlimited-style banquet that attracts hunters, doctors, patients and non-hunters from throughout the community. The hunt and the banquet sell out every year, and the event has raised around $700,000 since 2003 all the while making hunters out to be the good guys, which we are.
   

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Some tough men donate their time as celebrities for... [ Read Full Post ]

By Philip Bourjaily

Take a look at the 2009 Remington catalog. What’s missing? Imports. After a brand-diluting dalliance with cheap Russian Baikal guns, reasonably nice Italian O/Us and Serbian Mausers, Remington once again is only selling guns made in the USA.

Now, I have nothing against the inexpensive and solidly made Baikal guns, outside of the fact that they have the heft and liveliness of truck axles. I kind of liked the Premier O/Us, although there wasn’t anything about them to set them apart from all the other Italian O/Us in their price range. Serbian Mausers are out of my area, but I understand they were okay. Whatever merits these guns may have had, though, none of them were Remingtons and they didn’t belong.

I called one of my friends at Remington for an explanation. He told me: “We had to get rid of the Russian guns because they competed directly with our H&R guns which we will continue to make in the United States.”

Remington, of course, was acquired by Cerberus Capital Management in 2007, which already owned Bushmaster at the time and has since added H&R, Marlin, Bushmaster, DPMS and EOTAC, as well as the Parker and LC Smith brands.

Given that many speculated... [ Read Full Post ]