Shooting Sportsman, March/April 2007

Wild in Argentina

Extreme mixed-bag gunning at Estancia Las Colas

Blue Devils

Scaled quail in the hot & prickly

Spring Flings

[PHOTOESSAY] Spring on the prairie. A time of rejuvenation, renewal, rebirth. For prairie grouse, it’s the season of courtship-of claiming territories, displaying and battling if need be. Sage grouse, dressed in their feathered finest, puff up and perform ritual dances. It’s boom or bust on the leks,

My Favorite Lunch

A flavorful day on the prairie

The Two-Inch 12 Revisited

The appeal of shooting shorties

Chapuis Armes

A French maker embracing the American market

From the Editor

Let me guess. You’re male, married, at least 50 years old and attended college. Close? If so, then you’re an average Shooting Sportsman reader, at least according to the results of our most recent survey. Several issues ago I mentioned that we were mailing questionnaires to 1,200 subscribers. Well, the

Letters

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly I’ve just read “Confederate Grouse,” by Tred Slough (Jan/Feb). Now there’s a man who has something to say! And how well he says it! A much needed and timely contrast to the horrible scenes deplored by Bob Hafey in his letter, “A Rant for Restraint,” in that issue. Here’s

Holland’s Heads South for the Southern

London’s Holland & Holland will join an impressive list of sponsors for the 8th Annual Southern Side-by-Side Championship & Exhibition. The growing event-held April 27 to 29 at Deep River Sporting Clays, near Raleigh/Durham in central North Carolina-includes a tented exhibition featuring some of the

Teague: A ‘Silver Lining’ for Old Barrels, Part II

(Editor’s Note: We pick up where Contributing Editor John Gregson left off in Jan/Feb: impatient to see his William Evans hammergun sleeved with Teague’s barrel liners.) The liners are lightweight steel; titanium has been tested as a future possibility, and if that happens, my thin-walled Midland 2″

Join Us Afield for Readers & Writers Adventures

Shooting Sportsman’s Readers & Writers Adventures program returns for 2007-’08-our Lucky 13th season-with a pair of superlative wingshooting trips: a classic November pheasant hunt at Oak Tree Lodge, in Clark, South Dakota, and a January ’08 bobwhite hunt at Wynfield Plantation, in Albany, Georgia. Both

New Double Guns from the Home of the Six-Shooter

Into the burgeoning entry-level side-by-side market steps yet another player: Smith & Wesson. Yes, the venerable American firm long known for its superlative pistols is going to produce game guns. Not only that, but along with its side-by-sides, it is manufacturing over/unders and autoloaders in field

Building a Better Bore Gauge

As the old saying goes, build a better mousetrap and… well, probably not in the esoteric arena of shotgun bore gauges. But we might see the small world of double-barrel shotgun aficionados beat a path to Bob Foege’s door. I received a new shotgun choke, bore and wall-thickness gauge to test that might

Have Guns, Want to Travel

Travel is broadening, they say. Travel with guns, however, is narrowing. That is, it is always becoming more of a headache. Curiously, it is not the government-or at least not the US government-that’s at fault. No, it’s the airlines, foreign countries and even our individual states. New restrictions

Matters of Ethics

During my junior year in college, I took a course in ethics from Dr. Theodore A.R. Kahn. Actually, I took every one of his courses in philosophy that would fit into my goal of taking every literature course the school offered. Dr. Kahn, like most of the faculty, believed that the purpose of attending

Balancing a Double Gun, Part I

As a shooter, I have been intrigued with shotgun balance for a long time-long before I knew why one gun could feel like I could hit with it, whereas another could feel like an oak post. Be it a rifle, a shotgun or even a handgun, appropriate balance is an important part of why some guns simply can be

A First Look at Shotstrings

A First Look at Shotstrings

A Fitting Impact

I can’t remember where I read it. It was months ago, and I don’t recall if it was in one of the sporting-clays-oriented magazines or a general shooting publication. Perhaps it was on one of the Websites that are ostensibly dedicated to helping people improve their game. I also can’t recall whether it

Training Tips– A Baker’s Dozen

The best tip I can pass on to facilitate the training process is to do things right in the first place. Many of the problems I see in our training schools are a result of good intentions but poor applications. This column is dedicated to serving up a menu of training tips that will make training go easier

Krieghoff Essencia

After the second bottle had been opened, dinner discussion turned to “best” guns and who makes them today. We were at the most recent Vintage Cup and had been wallowing in the finest doubles extant. Two of our party suggested that these days the Germans are making better English guns than the

Cutting-Edge Knives

I know a little something about knives, having worked in the meat department at a supermarket when I was in high school. As a young butcher, I learned that sharp knives work much better than dull ones. I also discovered that no blade is designed for all purposes. Boning knives, for example, don’t fillet

From Poaching to Procuring

This time I’ll look at a suspenseful tale by an undercover wildlife agent, a history of clay pigeon shooting and -something different for these pages-a work describing how, in this modern age, much of our nation’s food arises from its sources in the land and arrives on our plates. A Hunt for Justice

Don’t Fool Around with Nathaniel Peabody

The lovely Stephanie invited me to join her at the 10th annual class reunion of her finishing school. I had attended the fifth annual reunion. It had been an experience I shall not forget. It had been overwhelmingly apparent that I did not fit in with the rest of the celebrants. When introduced to them,

WHIPping Habitat

Although not without its hon- est detractors, the 1996 Farm Bill truly was “FAIR.” The proper name for this historic piece of legislation was the Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform bill, and it carried a WHIP-that is to say, a Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program. As we all know, Uncle