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... [ Read Full Post ]

Over the weekend I helped out at a Pheasants Forever Mentored Youth Hunt. PF, I should mention here, is my favorite of the single-species groups because they spend all their money locally, do good habitat work, and support youth hunting and shooting of all kinds. Anyway, it was my job to run three groups of kids through some shooting instruction before they went hunting.  I’ve done this before, and I learn more from watching the kids shoot than they learn listening to me.

This weekend’s takeaway: slow down to speed up.

Since the kids were going to shoot flushing birds, I had them start from a safe field carry position, then call pull, and mount and shoot. Naturally, all of them wanted to throw the gun up as fast as possible.  The kids would whip the gun up, then have to readust their faces on the stock, then find the target again,  and shoot.

Move slowly, I told them. Push the muzzle toward the bird like you’re trying to stick it with a bayonet and raise the gun to your face smoothly.

I expected them to start hitting targets better. What I didn’t expect was that they would start hitting targets faster.... [ Read Full Post ]

Some of you expressed disappointment that the new Beretta A400  -- billed as a dinosaur gun -- turned out to be a mere 3 ½ inch 12 gauge.  While I think the A400 should be a dandy gun for ducks, geese and pheasants, it is admittedly on the light side for one-shot kills on larger sauropods. I would want more gun. In fact, I would want one of these.

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My friend Walter sent me this picture a while back from the Iowa State Fair. The fair is perhaps best known for the life-size butter cow and other butter sculptures* but you see all kinds of neat stuff if you wander around the exhibit halls. Walter spotted this trap-table in the 4-H hall. It won a blue ribbon for Marc Fullerton of Nora Springs in the Science, Mechanics and Engineering category and is solid evidence that 4-H still supports hunting, shooting and other wholesome activities.

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Whenever I teach new shooters and catch them trying to aim a shotgun, I ask if they play any ball sports. Shooting a shotgun, I tell them is no different than hitting a tennis ball, or even throwing a pass to a receiver. You don’t try to aim, you just focus on the target. Here’s Baltimore Ravens QB Joe Flacco illustrating that point in spectacular fashion.

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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 ]

From a National Shooting Sports Foundation press release via PR Newswire:
A letter signed by [13 Republican] United States senators to Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar raising important questions about actions by the National Park Service (NPS) to ban the use of traditional ammunition in parks that allow hunting has drawn praise from the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the trade association for the firearms, ammunition, hunting and shooting sports industry.

In concluding their letter to Secretary Salazar, the senators were very clear as to what they wanted to see: "We request that NPS cease all actions to prohibit the use of lead products on NPS lands by private citizens and NPS personnel."

Check out the full release. [ Read Full Post ]

In our town, elementary school ice cream socials are a long-standing institution. You go, get a little cup of ice cream in a hot gym, then get volunteered for things you don’t want to do. I dutifully went for all the years my kids were in grade school and am now thankfully done. Seeing this video, I can’t help but think how much more fun would a “machine gun social” would be.

The event drew 500 people recently and I don’t blame them for showing up: $25 bucks for full magazine, a BBQ sandwich – something they know how to make in South Carolina – and a chance at a rifle is a pretty good deal.

My only quibble with the idea is, why raffle off an AK-47? At the very least, a candidate to lead the National Guard (SC is the only state that elects its Guard adjutant general) should award a US service rifle. It would be even better, though, to give away a gun made in South Carolina: why wasn’t first prize a Jarrett rifle or a South Carolina-made Model 70?... [ Read Full Post ]

Hunting season started exactly the right way for me this year. I tagged along with my son John and my friend Mike (pictured below) for an evening hunt on opening day of our youth deer season. Mike had graciously invited John to sit in his bowstand and take first crack at his best spot.

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We don’t usually address conservation in this space but the way I look at it, shotguns aren’t good for much if you don’t have birds to hunt with them.

Back in the early 80s, when fencerow to fencerow farming was devastating pheasant populations, I can remember going hunting with my cousin one day. It was right at the beginning of the whitetail population boom, and all we saw that were a couple of hen pheasants and dozens of deer. [ Read Full Post ]

It's always refreshing to see a  person reject "liberal" versus "conservative" politics in favor of  non-partisan rationality, and a good example of this can be found in this essay on the "liberal"-leaning news site Salon.
 
From the story:
 
I was a violent kid. More than anything, I loved to  play war. In my basement, I built a sandbag foxhole out of stacked-up sofa  pillows. I would hide inside and peer out at what I imagined were the smoking slopes of Iwo Jima, crawling with Japanese soldiers ready to fight to the death.

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