picked up an old mossberg 395K bolt action real cheap for testing reloads that aren't quite out of the manuals (not the topic of this thread so argue the wisdom of that somewhere else). took it to the range and was first time i'd used a b/a shotgun. ran 23/25 at pasture trap, low gun safety on (not the topic of this thread either) pulling a permanently set up trap for myself with a lanyard.
by all rights, this gun doesn't look like much. birch instead of walnut, homely to most. but it handled great, fit well, was easy to hit with, went bang every time, ejected and fed flawlessly. the only thing missing was aesthetics.
contrast that with the last sxs i got rid of - a winchester model 23 pigeon 12. good looking i guess and worked fine but i'd have been lucky to shoot myself in the foot. i think the best i ever did at pasture trap was 19/25 and if you can't hit pasture trap you're not going to hit much of anything.
by my reckoning, first and foremost a gun has to be totally reliable. next it has to fit well enough that it's useable by the shooter. everything else is gravy and only thing really left is looks. i can only conclude the mossberg is a fine firearm and the model 23 is a dog. i realize results may vary but i've owned three 23's and shot none well.
but what i was really getting at here is how surprised i was by how capable a firearm the lowly b/a shotgun can be. i'm sure they're looked down upon as cheap and (usually) ugly but people who've used them for hunting could have done much, much worse. at least in this case, the performance far exceeded the cost. 50 lousy bucks. what can you get for 50 bucks that performs that well.
regarding some rifle cartridge, john wooters once remarked "you can't argue with a dead deer." i'll paraphrase that: "you can't argue with a pile of shattered targets."
roger
It does say "other FINE firearms", but it's certainly OK by me.
