Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Semi-auto < $1K ?

Mule Deer after reading Shotguns For Wingshooting , again, I get the impression your first love are shotguns. If I haven't totally lost my math skills, you wrote it 25 years ago. So what would be your recommendations now ?

Hmm....

Actually, I love both rifles and shotguns equally--but have loved upland bird hunting more than any kind for a long time, and even more as I get older! So you may be right.

Haven't bought a brand-new shotgun for quite a while. But the most impressive semiauto I've owned is the Benelli Ethos. Mine wasn't vastly more than $1000 when I acquired a 12-gauge in 2013, but the price is quite a bit more now!

The oldest shotgun in my collection which I bought new is a Remington 870 Wingmaster 12-gauge magnum, which believe or not I ordered through the J.C. Penney store in Missoula, Montana in 1979. That was before they offered screw-in choke, so I got two barrels, a 26" improved-cylinder and a 30" full, but a few years later bought a 28" barrel with chokes. Eventually also bought a rifled-slug barrel, which has taken not just deer but in Eileen's hands a cow moose, and my biggest black bear. It has hunted birds from Alberta to Argentina.

The other is the Fausti DEA side-by-side 28-gauge mentioned in the thread on duck loads for an L.C. Smith 20-gauge. Bought it new from the factory, after they sent it to me for some articles.

But a lot of my my favorite shotguns are older, including two Sauer drilling, which are naturally 16-gauge.

Thanks for the reply. I bought my MEC 600 junior off a fellow named Bob, we ended up talking a lot over the phone. It was interesting, he had lots of stories. He switched from elk hunting to grouse . With elk hunting he went all over the mountain and had nothing to show for it. Grouse hunting was more successful.

We don't hunt together but always camp together, usually on some oil patch lease. I was invited over for spruce grouse with mushroom soup sauce and mashed potatoes , it wasn't bad, but now armed with Eileen's cook book, look out grouse.

Yep, Upland Game Bird Cookery works pretty well!

Have mentioned elsewhere that we put 12,000 miles on our vehicles traveling around the year before the book was published, driving from Arizona to Alberta and the U.P. of Michigan to eastern Oregon, collecting "field specimens" for her to experiment with. It was a lot of work but a lot of fun! (There were also a couple airline trips, but we really liked the driving trips, because we had a young bird dog who traveled with us and learned a lot, while hunting 11 upland birds from woodcock and quail to sage grouse.)

Details please? I lost my last dog in 2012 to a pyometra infection, but I'm thinking I might jump in again

Also, MD, my wingshooting opportunities have been severely limited for a number of years. The only repeating shotgun I have left is a 12 ga Model 37. It's too light and kicks too much for me to use it much these days.

I'm doing some therapy and muscle building, but would like your comparison opinion on the old man friendliness of various bird guns from gas operated semis to O/Us and side by sides in 20 or 28 ga.

Is there a double of any kind that you'd recommend for around ~$2500, or so?

In semis, I'm kinda liking the Beretta A400 Explore in 28/28" but I would value your opinion on that choice of shotgun and gauge.

I picked up a like-new Browning 725 Field a year and a half ago for $2k. Had a couple of extra extended DS chokes and I added a couple more. That DS system really works. The brass ring seals off the area between the threads and the muzzle so crap doesn’t accumulate there. I keep pulling them to check and it stays clean. The 725 also has a mechanical trigger; most others have inertia triggers that occasionally fail to reset.

My shooting buddies shoot mostly a mix of Berettas and Brownings and I don’t think you can go wrong with either. To stay under $2500 check out used nicer versions as opposed to ones that retail under that. In the end, they’re all used.

Thanks Pappy

I looked up the 725 Field and it looks like a great value. But the 28 ga weighs over 7 lbs, and I kinda think I'd like something a tad lighter

I could easily get over that if it had nice enough walnut, but that gets pricey quick...