"used to shoot competitive live pigeon for almost forty years, and still functions quite reliably."
That's some demanding sport on equipment and competitor alike and it would be an interesting read to see the different types of Spanish shotguns used by the competitors.
There are just a huge number of live pigeon matches on YouTube. Here are a couple as examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFrQMgPwqKshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP4MKe-OD3E Who used what kind of gun was idiosyncratic. People used what they had, what they could afford, or if very well off a gun made to whatever specifications they thought best embodied a competition gun.
Just about every maker who was around during the height of the pigeon shoots had a model with the features they thought made an idea competition/pigeon gun. The AyA model 56 is an example of a purpose designed competition gun. My own favorite (favorite enough that I bought one) is the Model 229 made by Hijos (Luis y Lazaro) de Juan Jose Arrizabalaga.
When I bought the 229 I actually had a choice of that gun or a similar AyA 56 (cased, two barrel set, etc). Same price, either gun. I picked the 229 because it had better engraving :-)
All Spanish shotguns fall somewhere on a continuum that runs from light game gun (think AyA model No.1, 12 gauge with 2 inch chambers at about 6 pounds total weight), through a medium game gun (think AyA model 53), to a heavy competition gun (AyA 56, Arrizbalaga model 229, etc.). The difference between guns at the extreme and mid point on this continuum are hard to see until example guns can be seen side by side. Here are, side by side, a heavy competition gun (Arrizbalaga model 229) and a mediu game gun (AyA model 53):
Interesting, no?
