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 ]

We all know there isn’t much love lost between hunters and anti-hunters, but nobody wishes anybody any real harm—except when some crazy anti-hunter does wish us real harm and a newspaper has the poor taste to print his wish. Then it’s the hunters, in this case the National Shooting Sports Foundation, who take the high ground.

From the NSSF website:
Shameful is the word that comes to mind for the Burlington Free Press and its decision to print a reader's anti-hunting letter. . . . that was written in response to the Vermont paper's story about the opening of moose hunting season. . . .

Here's the letter:
Take a Few Hunters Along with the Moose
On this beautiful day we learn that about 1,251 hunters are taking to the woods with legal permits to "pursue prized quarry." Certainly the members of various humane organizations do not approve. I suggest that before the next annual killing season, other residents be awarded legal permits to kill hunters who will be out to kill these beautiful, non-destructive animals. Or the government could just rule out all this primitive killing.

The NSSF asked for an apology and got one, as well an... [ 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 ]

I’m partial to my whistle. It’s a hand-me down from my older brother, who bought it in 1986. It has tooted for two Labs, one Golden, and now for Pritchard. It’s an Acme whistle with a pea, and the human teeth marks on it prove it has seen some good times and bad. But I often wonder if I should be using something bigger or newer or just plain different.

To get an answer I called my friend Steve Snell, owner of Gun Dog Supply. Snell owns 13 dogs (a mix that includes retrievers, pointers, and brittanys) and keeps six whistles in his truck. “And I always have two whistles on me,” he says. “Because one day I actually shut my whistle in the gate of the pickup.” Here’s what he had to say about your choices:

Distance and Volume: You need to ask yourself in what type of situations you plan to use your whistle. A retriever trainer who will be working on long blinds needs a whistle that has the power to carry, such as a Roy Gonia. A flushing dog trainer doesn’t need a whistle that... [ Read Full Post ]

I talk to a lot of gun dog trainers in the process of writing this blog, and one training message gets delivered over and over: You need to think like a dog. Recently I received a new book that helped illuminate how a dog thinks. Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know by Alexandra Horowtz is not aimed at gun dog owners nor is it a training guide. But it did provide some insight into the world of the dog. Here are a few things I found interesting and helpful:

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That’s me with skeet shooter Chiara Cainero at dinner in Brescia, Italy. She is holding her gold medal from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which she won in a three-way shootoff in the rain.

Cainero shoots way better than she speaks English, and I shoot better than I speak Italian (which is not saying much), but we were still able to talk about how she trained to deal with Olympic pressure.

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On Saturday Pritch and I attended our first hunt test in Fort Lawn, S.C. The event was hosted by the Carolina Boykin Spaniel Retriever Club, and I entered Pritch in the puppy division (6 to 12 months).

Our first test was a land retrieve. There were three birds thrown—one to our left, one directly in front of us, and one to our far right. And we were downright awful. Pritch needed to hunt up the first bird but eventually found it…then decided to pluck it on the spot. I eventually ran out to her and brought her back in. She marked the next two birds well but still wouldn’t pick them up—more plucking, a little tossing, and no retrieving.

Can you say “dejection?” How about “mortification?” Maybe even a little “despair?” I felt them all.

At least I knew the water test would play to Prtich’s strengths…mainly because she loves a water retrieve and really has no choice but to pick up the bird. The test (photo above) was pretty straightforward. The bird was launched from a bank about 15 yards to our right and the dog would need to swim about 25 yards... [ Read Full Post ]

As bird season ramps up all over the country it’s inevitable that some dogs will get lost. Nowadays, high-tech, dog-tracking systems have helped to curb wayward pups but not always. And not everyone has the dough to fork out for these fancy electronics. But according to Steve Snell, owner of Gun Dog Supply, the most important tool for getting your dog back home is its collar, specifically the brass nameplate on its collar.

Snell should know. Gun Dog Supply has shipped thousands of collars to dog owners across the country. And he’s got a pack of his own gun dogs that he also keeps tabs on. In short, the man knows dogs. Here are his rules for nameplates and what belongs on them:

No Name: Never put a dog’s name on the nameplate. Why? Because there’s no need for it. As Snell says, once someone is close enough to read the nameplate there’s no need for them to call your dog by name. Also, omitting it leaves room for more valuable information (see below). Besides, a dog can be stolen more easily if the dog-napping punk knows its name.

The Essentials: It’s... [ Read Full Post ]

From the Choteau Acantha:

[O]fficials on Tuesday said that a pheasant hunter from Alaska shot and killed a sow grizzly in dense brush east of U.S. Highway 89 and about 8 miles north of Choteau on Monday. . . .

[Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks game warden Rod] Duty said the hunter was probably 20 feet from the bear when he saw her. He said the hunter told him she was on her feet and took two big lunges toward him. He fired three times at her with a 20-gauge semi-automatic shotgun, Duty said. The third shot, including the wad, hit the bear in the forehead and brought her down, fatally wounded. . . .

Duty said on Tuesday that the case appears to be a self-defense shooting.

  [ Read Full Post ]

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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From the Dawson News & Advertiser:

An 11-year-old Dawsonville boy who was shot in the head when his gun accidentally discharged in the Dawson Forest Wildlife Management Area on Friday has died.



John Wayne Corcoran was transported by air to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite following the incident, which occurred just before 6 p.m. He died at the hospital later that night.



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