shotguns

Matching 1984 Hand-Engraved Holland & Holland Shotguns Go for $135,000

Sarah Smith — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:44:36 -0400

Anyone who says guns can't be high art hasn't laid their eyes on this spectacular, custom-made matched pair of Holland & Holland shotguns commissioned in 1984 by a wealthy Texas businessman. These bespoke beauties took three years to complete, and feature some of the most stunning and detailed engraving ever seen on a shotgun.

The Tactical Side of Things From SHOT Show 2011

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 12:59:02 -0500

Booth Babe Round-Up

Joe_Cermele — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:28:00 -0400

There's a lot more to look at than just guns at the annual SHOT Show. Here are all our favorite "Booth Babe" photos from the last few years.

The Best New Gun Gear at the 2009 SHOT Show

Online Editors — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:43:53 -0400

The West Concourse of Orlando’s Orange County Convention Center measures 1.1 million square feet. As the OCCC’s factoid sheet points out, the exhibit hall is so big you could lay the Sears Tower on its side, put it in the West Concourse, and have room to spare. Cram that huge space with hunting and shooting gear, decorate it with a few booth babes, and you’ve got the 2009 Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show.

The big sellers at SHOT this year were black guns and tactical gear. But the industry thinks hunters have money to spend, too—I saw plenty of innovation intended to appeal to us. Of the thousands of items on display, here are eight that made an impression on me in one way or another, from least tempting to most:

Benelli Performance Shop SuperSport $2,700; benelliusa.com The new Performance Shop SuperSport consists of the already dead reliable SuperSport autoloader tricked out with all kinds of Briley Manufacturing goodies: oversize bolt handle, bolt closer, magazine cap weight, backbored barrel, extended chokes, lengthened forcing cone, and tuned trigger.

The Takeaway: Benelli wins the Chutzpah Award for introducing an auto with no engraving, a synthetic stock, and a mind-boggling price tag during a global economic meltdown. It’s the ultimate Argentina dove shooter, but for what it costs you can buy a nice over/under, or a ton of canned goods.

Flambeau Shady Lady $60; www.flambeauoutdoors.com Raised feather details are covered with electrostatically applied flocking to give this hard, full-body hen decoy a lifelike sheen.

The Takeaway: I find the comeback of full-bodies depressing. They’re too bulky for mobile hunters; they’re intended for the increasing number of pop-up blind potatoes who sit inside a dark nylon cube drinking coffee and looking out the window at a little slice of the outdoors. Still, the Shady Lady is gorgeous. The decline of turkey hunting never looked so good.

Wildside Siding $3 per square foot; wildsidecamo.com For those who still have money to spend, ostentation is out. “Stealth wealth” is in. How better to hide that extravagant second home than to cover it in Mossy Oak Obsession? For the rest of us, WildSide siding is perfect for shooting houses, sheds, cabins, and duck shacks.

The Takeaway: No one needs camo siding, but will people buy it anyway? Oh, yes.

Winchester Model 101 $1,659 and up; winchesterguns.com Winchester’s 101 is not your father’s Japanese 101, but a Belgian-made o/u formerly known as the Supreme, the Select, the Select 101, and now, the 101. I shot one of the first Supremes eight years ago, when it was a well-engineered, low-profile o/u in a very ugly package. Winchester has fiddled constantly with these guns to make them look and feel right, and now they’ve got it.

The Takeaway: An underrated gun gets a deserved makeover, at a price that’s a good value.

Remington 887 $399; remington.com I planned not to like Remington’s ugly new 31⁄2-inch pump, but as I shot one at an event before the show, it grew on me. The 887’s receiver and barrel are completely encased in plastic to withstand the dunks and dings of waterfowl hunting. This isn’t a plastic-coated 870 but an all-new design with some nice touches, like a slide release in the front of the trigger guard.

The Takeaway: This is a weatherproof pump that feels less hideous than it looks. And it’s priced to abuse.

Ithaca Model 37 28 Gauge $999 and up; ithacagun.com Ithaca keeps folding and coming back because the Model 37 is too beloved to die. I was delighted not only to find Ithaca at SHOT this year but to see that their booth contained a scaled-down 28-gauge weighing under 6 pounds.

The Takeaway: A $1,000 28-gauge pump is the very definition of niche gun, but some nostalgic bird hunters will go nuts over it.

Winchester Xpert Game and Target Small Gauge Steel $12 for 25; winchester.com As more upland areas go lead-free, these steel loads will keep your smallbore from becoming a safe queen. I shot them in 28 gauge and .410 at the pre-SHOT media shooting day, and when I pointed the gun straight, they smashed targets.

The Takeaway: This is much-needed ammo for our lead-free future. Unfortunately, some people will misinterpret these as loads for kids to shoot at ducks. With just 3⁄8 ounce of No. 6 shot in .410 and 5⁄8 ounce in 28 gauge, they aren’t.

Knight & Hale Pack Rack $20; knightandhale.com Knight & Hale’s Pack Rack looks like no other rattling call, but the two pieces of plastic sound just like sparring bucks when you knock them together. The hollow handles function as sound chambers, and better yet, one nests inside the other for noise-free transport.

The Takeaway: You search the booths at SHOT looking for a Better Mousetrap, and sometimes you find one. This compact call sounds great, and you can’t smash your fingers with it. That’s progress.

Beards, Booth Babes, and Other Neck-Snapping Sights from the 2008 SHOT Show Floor

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:00:00 -0500

This year's SHOT Show set new records for number of attendees, exhibits, floor space, and real he-men wearing tactical packs, but it was tragically lacking in booth babes. Our intrepid photographer shot the only good ones we found and then was forced to include beards, backpacks, and other stuff just to pad out the section. <p>Feel free to skip them. There were a number of booth babes who were, to be brutally honest, not babes. In fact, some of them looked like Bill Heavey with a bra. I'm sure they are fine people, but you are supposed to be a hottie if you do this kind of work. --David Petzal

10 New Shotguns from the 2008 SHOT Show

fieldandstream-editor — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:00:00 -0500

Ducks in Danger

fieldandstream-editor — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 04:00:00 -0500

Fish and wildlife managers from state and federal agencies have been combing the Louisiana coast since the hurricanes, much like disaster relief teams picked through the rubble of the human communities in the region. They're counting the dead, looking for survivors, and trying to measure the suitability of the habitat for resettlement.

So far the news is not good for the millions of ducks and geese already heading for the Louisiana coast, just as they have every fall for thousands of years.

Scientists say Katrina took a wicked chunk out of brackish and fresh marshes east of the Mississippi River, and Rita left a flood of highly saline water stewing on the fragile freshwater wetlands in central and southwestern Louisiana. Some of the nation's most productive wintering habitat--and most storied waterfowling grounds--may be all but useless to ducks and geese this year.

"Katrina pretty much spared the central and western portions of the coast, mainly because the highest winds were from the north, which kept a lot of the Gulf water away from those marshes," says Robert Helm, the veteran waterfowl biologist with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

"But Rita changed all of that. It pretty much picked up the water from the open Gulf--with salinity measurements in the 30s (parts per thousand)--and just dumped it on those fresh marshes, as well as a lot of the ricefields in that country. As I understand it, we had measurements in the 20s in some of the ricefields. That's a shock to those plants and kills them."

Of course, other storms have hit this region and had similar impacts. But those floodwaters typically fall quickly--usually helped along by seasonal rains that add a layer of fresh water to help the wetlands heal. That hasn't happened this year. Right after Rita, another disturbance farther south in the Gulf created persistent east and south winds that kept water locked up in those areas.

Those floodwaters, brimming with organic material, have been cooking in 90-degree heat. Decomposition of plants quickly robbed the water of oxygen. Like giant open petri dishes, many areas are growing bacteria and other organisms that thrive in such conditions.

It's an ideal environment for outbreaks of avian diseases such as cholera, biologists say. The lack of food for migrating birds can weaken their defenses. The bacteria in the water can cause illnesses. And the overcrowding that can take place as birds concentrate into the few areas with food and good water means that disease can spread rapidly and infect tens of thousands of birds.

"Poor water quality is oftentimes an issue with waterfowl diseases, like botulism and avian cholera, things we don't normally have trouble with here because there's so much habitat," says Helm. "But this is an exceptional set of circumstances."

It's so exceptional that waterfowl managers really don't know what will happen--and that worries them.

"The Louisiana coast is the backbone of wintering habitat for the Mississippi Flyway," says Helm. "My perception has always been that it will always be there for the birds. We've had high water, we've had low water. But we've always had enough habitat for the migration.

"But this winter, that habitat will largely go missing. That's unprecedented, at least in my life. It's an unknown, and that's scary."

Online Exclusive: Rita's Ruin

fieldandstream-editor — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 04:00:00 -0500

Three weeks after Hurricane Katrina savaged the southeast Louisiana coast, sportsmen like Joe Courcelle in Jesuit Bend, about 40 miles downriver from New Orleans, were trying to view the glass as half-full. Sure, Katrina had whacked fish and wildlife habitat in the coastal wetlands, but deer would have plenty of new browse, fish would work their way back as the water cleared and--because it was still summer--the aquatic duck food destroyed by the big storm might well sprout again before most waterfowl arrived in late October. Besides, local sportsmen could still go to the largely unaffected central and southwest coasts.

Then along came Rita. By the end of last weekend, flood tides of 8 to 12 feet had submerged the entire Louisiana coast. Some 1.5 million acres of public hunting and fishing habitat on 43 state and federal wildlife management areas--more than half the state's public hunting lands--were impacted by the vicious one-two punch.

The second major hurricane of the season not only wiped out many coastal hunting seasons. It might also have dealt a serious blow to a significant portion of waterfowl in the Mississippi Flyway.

"There won't be a stick of duck food left in south Louisiana," the 67-year-old Courcelle said after spending a long night strengthening a levee separating his home from the eastern reaches of Barataria Bay. "Anything we had left after Katrina was taken away by Rita. I don't know if we've ever had anything like this."

He was right.

"Storms have reduced coastal waterfowl habitat in the past--in fact, many times in the past--but this may be the first time we've had storms eliminate the habitat," said Robert Helm, waterfowl study leader for the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. "Many of these plants can tolerate salinities up to five parts per thousand, but practically the entire coast was under 5 to 10 feet of almost pure Gulf water, which is around 30 parts per thousand.

"If the surge and waves didn't wash away the submergent (floating aquatic) vegetation, the saltwater probably killed it. And the same water was over ricefields and other agricultural fields that attract ducks and geese."

That means the millions of waterfowl that normally winter in coastal Louisiana will be pressed into looking for other sources of sustenance. If they have a hard time finding those groceries this winter, they will leave for the return migration next spring stressed from lack of a proper diet and arrive on the nesting grounds exhausted. Nesting could be delayed, and nesting success could decline.

"The correlation between a duck's weight and nesting success is well established, so the lack of food here could have an impact next spring," said Helm.

"The birds will come down to the coast like normal, but when they can't find enough fuel, they'll leave the coast and begin looking for other sources. If they can't find enough food, then they could have trouble next spring.

"This has been one incredible hurricane season."

And that season doesn't end for another month.

Ducks in Danger

fieldandstream-editor — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 04:00:00 -0500

So far the news is not good for the millions of ducks and geese already heading for the Louisiana coast, just as they have every fall for thousands of years.

It's so exceptional that waterfowl managers really don't know what will happen--and that worries them.

"But this winter, that habitat will largely go missing. That's unprecedented, at least in my life. It's an unknown, and that's scary."

Online Exclusive: Rita's Ruin

fieldandstream-editor — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 04:00:00 -0500

The second major hurricane of the season not only wiped out many coastal hunting seasons. It might also have dealt a serious blow to a significant portion of waterfowl in the Mississippi Flyway.

He was right.

"The correlation between a duck's weight and nesting success is well established, so the lack of food here could have an impact next spring," said Helm.

"This has been one incredible hurricane season."

And that season doesn't end for another month.