By Kristyn Brady

Rebecca Etchen Peters is a competitive shotgunner and bird hunter whose family legacy is marksmanship. The daughter of Pennsylvania custom gun dealer Joel Etchen, she represents the fourth generation of sharpshooting Etchens to emerge as a major contender in registered competition, and the third in her family to look beyond the barrel at a career related to shooting and hunting. In a Q+A with assistant editor Kristyn Brady, Rebecca shares some lessons from her grandfather, a world-class shot, her love of dove hunting, and what it was like to deal with the unique pressure of competing as a youth in a sport where everyone knows your name.

First, a bit of history on her family. Rebecca’s maiden name holds a lot of weight in the shotgunning world. The family’s history of hunting goes back even further than Joel Etchen. Rebecca's great-great-grandfather, John Etchen, was a market hunter who sold birds to local restaurants and hotel kitchens in Kansas in the late 1800s. He trained his six sons in the same vocation, and one of them, Fred, branched out into competitive shooting. He went on to captain the U.S. Olympic shooting team in the 1924 Paris summer games,... [ Read Full Post ]

By Phil Bourjaily

I mentioned in a previous column I had shot up over a box of 3-inch pheasant loads as an experiment on a preserve hunt a couple weeks ago. That ammo was Federal’s 3-inch Pheasants Forever-label “Prairie Storm” magnums which contain 1-5/8 ounces of lead shot at 1350 fps. After a few shots we renamed them “Pterodactyls Forever”* loads. They are deadly at both ends of the gun, and, in my experience, way more shell than is necessary to kill a pheasant.**

However, experience can be deep but narrow. While I have done a ton of pheasant hunting, aside from a handful of hunts in Nebraska and South Dakota, most of my birds have been shot in two counties in Iowa. I hunt alone or in the company of one or two people and we run pointing dogs and/or close-working flushers. I try to be selective with the shots I take. I won’t shoot at a bird going straight away past about 35 yards, for instance. [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal

As Phil and I have noted, we’re doing a series of radio interviews to promote "The Total Gun Manual" which, I understand, may get us a Nobel Prize. (If Barack Obama can get a Nobel for doing absolutely nothing, why shouldn’t we collect one for putting out the greatest gun book ever written?) Most of the talk-show hosts I’ve encountered have been completely ignorant about guns, and admitted it, and did good interviews. However, along the way I’ve gotten some odd questions, and a couple of hostile ones. Some examples:

Have I ever shot anyone? (No, just unlucky I guess.)

Am I armed, right now, this minute? (No. The most dangerous thing in the vicinity is the cat, who is in his morning coma.)

Are you going to shoot us? (No, you’re in another part of the U.S., and way out of rifle range.)

My favorite, though, was: “What if you get crosswise of someone who has road rage and a gun?” [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal

Before we get around to shooting, let us for a moment reflect on how far we have fallen by remembering Bess Truman, First Lady and wife of Harry Truman. Mrs. Truman’s predecessor was Eleanor Roosevelt, who was the Hillary Clinton of her time in terms of popularity and influence. Unlike Eleanor, however, Bess Truman detested Washington, politics, and in particular the press. During her time as First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt had held a weekly press conference, and so when Bess Truman got the job, she was asked when she would hold hers.

“There aren’t going to be any press conferences,” said Mrs. Truman, and she meant it. During Harry Truman’s eight years in the Oval Office, she held only one, which consisted of written questions submitted in advance, and of which many were answered, “No comment.”

Much of the time, Bess Truman did not even live in Washington. Imagine that today.

But let us now reflect on shooting technique, because there is a right way and a wrong way to do things, and, the conventional wisdom has it, if you shoot the right way you will hit, and if you shoot the wrong way you will miss. Mostly this is true. When I shot Sporting Clays a little while back I saw some truly dreadful gunnery, and it was happening because the shooters responsible were doing everything wrong. [ Read Full Post ]

By Phil Bourjaily

Years ago I was in Stuttgart, Arkansas with the president of a company that made expensive non-toxic shot. He was expounding on the theme that ammunition is a small part of the overall price of hunting, and that most hunters don’t shoot many shells in a season. Therefore, he said, the average hunter could afford his shells, which then cost about $2 apiece.

To prove his point, he turned to our guide and asked, “How many boxes of shells do you shoot in a year?”

He asked the wrong guy. Kenny guided every day of duck and goose season. He thought for a moment and said “About seven cases.”
[ Read Full Post ]

Editor's Note: this post comes from Field & Stream's 'The Total Gun Manual' by David E. Petzal and Phil Bourjaily.

While I leave major jobs to a gunsmith, I like to be able to take guns apart and put them back together, mount scopes, switch stock shims, and so on myself. My gun bench contains the following:

THE BASICS
• A gun cradle to hold guns so I can work on them with both hands
• A Phillips-head screwdriver for removing recoil pads
• A large flat screwdriver for removing stock bolts
• Mini versions of both flat and Phillips-head screwdrivers
• A socket wrench with extension for removing stock bolts that don’t have slotted heads
• A spanner made for removing pump forearms
• A set of roll pin punches
• A set of gunsmithing screwdrivers with interchangeable heads so I don’t mar any screws
[ Read Full Post ]