If you’re accustomed to rifles or pistols, or simply a new shooter, you’ll be surprised to know that shotguns generally require both of your eyes to be open while shooting.
Author: Irwin Greenstein
All About Shotguns
There are two challenges to finding a great shotgun — fit and suitability.
The shotguns section of Shotgun Life is dedicated to helping you recognize the perfect shotgun (that you’ll want to keep for the rest of your life, and then hand down to your family for generations to come.)
For some people, finding a great shotgun is simply love at first sight. For others, a great shotgun grows on them — and they find themselves down in the basement cleaning it for absolutely no other reason than just to be in its company.
But for every shotgun owner who falls in love with their pride-and-joy, there are teams of engineers and craftsmen toiling away behind the scenes to bring your gun to fruition.
As you’ll see, shotguns are generally designed for a particular sport. Some shotguns have composite stocks and fore-ends to withstand the travails of duck hunting. Then there are single-shot trap guns with high ribs that help you intercept rising targets. And skeet shooters find that their beavertail fore-end is particularly adept at bringing about a smooth, quick swing.
So let the search begin. Here is what you’ll find in our shotgun section…
- Shotguns for Clays and Wingshooting
- Shotgun Actions
- Break Actions
- Over/Under
- Side-by-Side
- Single-Barrel Shotgun
- Semiautomatics
- Pumps
- Skeet Shotguns
- Trap Shotguns
- WaterFowl Shotguns
- Upland Shotguns
Grouse in High Places
On a hot August day last year, James Ashcroft visited Atholl estate, for a day of sweltering sport after the well-heeled Scottish grouse, a gamebird beyond compare
Waterfowl Gear and Game Calls
Wingshooting Stories
Wingshooting is the real deal for shotgun enthusiasts.
Clays sports such as skeet, trap and sporting clays were originally invented with a single goal in mind: improve your ability to shoot real birds with real feathers.
While a hefty kill for the day will certainly bring on a healthy smile, wingshooting is more than shooting your own dinner.
Wingshooting tradition runs deep in the American psyche. For many, wingshooting and the Second Amendment’s the right to bear arms, are virtually synonymous.
Shotguns
Skeet Shotguns
The standard skeet gun is an over/under break action that has screw-in chokes. This configuration is available in just about any gauge from the smallest .410 to the largest 12-gauge.
Some shooters prefer to use a semi-automatic for skeet, also with screw-in chokes.
Either configuration works fine. The most important aspect of a good skeet gun is not the number of barrels it has or its action: it’s the balance and feel of the gun that allows you make smooth swings to hit the crossing targets of most skeet stations.
Wingshooting
Many shotgun aficionados will argue that clays shooting is merely a warm-up act for winghooting.
After all, shotguns are designed to shoot upland birds and waterfowl. And clays originated as practice sports to keep your eyes and reflexes sharp for the real thing.
Clay Sports
Unless you’re in a squad with highly ranked shooters who consider 24 out of 25 a miserable failure, skeet is a great sport for mixing, mingling and shooting.
Cheerful support, gratuitous advice and a few off-color jokes are the earmarks of a happy day of casual shooting on the skeet field…made all the better by a perfect 25.
Shotgun Clay Sports
Make a loud noise and break something.
There is something instinctive, even primal, about the satisfaction of seeing a clay target smash after a perfect shot. The smaller the pieces, the bigger the rush. That squirt of dopamine that tells your brain you just experienced a perfect moment.
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About Shotgun Life
Shotgun Life is the first online magazine devoted to the great people who participate in the shotgun sports.
Our goal is to provide you with the best coverage in wing and clays shooting. That includes places to shoot, ways to improve your shooting and the latest new products. Everything you need to know about the shotgun sports is a mouse-click away.
Contact
Irwin Greenstein
Publisher
Shotgun Life
PO Box 6423
Thomasville, GA 31758
Phone: 229-236-1632