September marks the end of summer for most of us, at least according to the calendar. Wish someone would tell the Texas weather gods it’s time to show us some signs of autumn. We need a break from the heat and drought that tortures us every year about this time.
The late Robert Churchill’s book “Game Shooting” is legendary for introducing wingshooters to “instinctive shooting,” which forgoes any notions of measured forward allowance as you swing the shotgun to down your quarry.
All shotshell manufacturers now have them: high velocity steel loads. You probably already know that most steel loads have higher instrumental velocities than most lead loads. Well, each company now offers even faster steel loads.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Does gun fit really matter? Well, I drove 1,320 miles to find the answer.
I wouldn’t make the grueling round-trip drive from Maryland to Georgia just for anyone who claimed to be a gunfitter. This guy was the real deal — by all accounts the best: Chris Batha.
In the wingshooting universe, the principles of conservation and ecology underpin habitat stewardship. Lyndall Bailye, founder of Good Shot Design tweed shooting apparel, is integrating those ideals into a line of traditional British shooting clothes and accessories made of high-tech fabrics now imported into the U.S. by her company.
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