After 60 Years, Dad’s 16-Gauge, Hardware-Store, Hammer Gun is Back in the Family

My Dad, who enjoyed hunting and shooting sports all of his life, passed away on June 5, 2013 at age 95.  Franklin Lee Marten was living on the farm in the same house where he was born. He was still shooting skeet and hunting doves by his grandson’s pond the year before he died. When I was a little kid, my dad had a 16-gauge Stevens hammer gun. I remember handling it, but Dad sold it to his good friend and hunting buddy, Harry Moore, in 1949 or 1950 before I was old enough to shoot it.

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Master Gun Fitter Bryan Bilinski Tells You How

If you’re a right-handed shooter who stands 5-feet, 9 inches, weighs about 165 pounds, has a 33-inch sleeve length and wears a size 40 regular suit coat, you probably think you don’t need to worry much about “gun fit” or even consider ever needing a custom gun fitting.

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Evil Recoil: Part 3

Evil recoil – both actual and felt – and their causes and solutions have been detailed in the previous two installments of this column. I’d like to finish off this treatise on recoil by examining some important ammunition specifics.

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On Being a Bird Hunter: Killing That Which You Love, Admiring That Which You Kill

Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to be a bird.

Funny thought, I know, coming from someone who spends a lot of time shooting birds, picking up their (ideally) limp bodies, disemboweling them and ultimately eating them, seemingly without a shred of remorse as their fat – blessed natural fat – drips down her chin. From where I sit, being a bird shouldn’t seem enviable, right?

But it is.

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