Most all shotgunners know that proper footwork goes a long way toward successful shot making. It wasn’t light enough to shoot ducks yet, but I was wishing I had a knowing shotgun instructor behind me with some useful advice. But it was shooting assistant Lucho behind, and he didn’t speak much English, and my Spanish is somewhat of a joke. So no help from Lucho. Did I mention my feet were stuck in the mud – in Argentina?

The Franchi Aspire is going to be particularly favored by the upland bird hunting community.

Franchi’s Aspire is a great looking sub-gauge over/under that, with a suggested retail price of $2,299, won’t scare your plastic credit card into melt-down mode (let’s call it a mid-priced shotgun). While over/under birds guns in that price range are usually coming out of Turkey, the Franchi Aspire is Italian made, in close proximity to many of the other great Italian shotgun names – yes the legendary town of Brescia.

The Invictus is a shotgun, but where did that name come from? Seems like an unusual name for a shotgun. One clue to find out the meaning of Invictus would be to go to the maker — Caesar Guerini. They’re based in Brescia, Italy so that gives us a clue. Digging a little deeper, Invictus has its roots in Latin. You remember Veni, vidi, vici don’t you? Caesar’s “I came, I saw, I conquered!” The translation from Latin to English for Invictus is “unconquerable.”

Who was it that said, “Find something you love to do and you will never have to work a day in your life?” Or something like that. It’s the way I feel this morning. It has been 44 years since I found what I love to do – and this is particularly true when I have something to pen that I’m passionate about.

There’s nothing like a little controversy to stir things up – reading here about opinions on Winchester’s vaunted Model 21 side by side – along with opinions about a possible up-and-comer in the used gun realm – Browning’s BSS (acronym for Browning Side by Side). The Winchester Model 21 has a long standing favorable reputation among many shotgunners, but especially among those who favor Winchesters of all types, maybe even more especially among Winchester collectors.

While the Cordoba region of Argentina has long been recognized as the high-volume dove-shooting hotspot, Cordoba isn’t the only area of South America that is plagued with a massive dove population. In the late 1990s Uruguay became a much sought after dove-gunning goal for many. After the turn of this century Bolivia became yet another dove shooting paradise – though most of the USA’s shotgunners have not heard much about the Bolivian shooting yet.

One of shotgunning’s most underutilized live resources is the pest pigeon population. Generally pest pigeon shooting here in the USA has little resemblance to the woodpigeon shooting that is so popular in the British Isles. In England woodpigeons are usually decoyed, and you hire a guide who has the birds scouted, the land owner’s permission to hunt, and all the equipment so that clients can enjoy great sport.

Both Uruguay and Argentina have great dove shooting every month of the year. Of course, their perdiz and duck shooting takes place in their winter – May, June and July – in a few instances into August. Many prefer the combination of ducks and perdiz or perdiz and doves or ducks and doves. With some outfitters it’s possible to hunt all three.

How about firing over 25,000 12-gauge shotgun shells as the testing grounds for two new shotguns? I have heard about gun companies that fire huge piles of shells as the introductory testing of new shotgun models, but I’m pretty sure such testing takes place in a figurative laboratory, i.e. the company’s testing facilities. But I was part of a five-shooter party that fired all those thousands of shells in a genuine hunting situation.

At the expense of incurring the wrath of all the shotgun manufactures I test guns for – this is written in stone – a new gun price depreciates significantly the moment you sign on the dotted line for the sale. Walk out the showroom door with a new smoothbore, try to sell it the next day, the next week or the next month and you are going to see that the new gun is worth considerably less than what you paid for it. This isn’t a completely bad thing for there’s a lot that can be considered rewarding to buying and shooting a new gun.