The biggest thing I learned from Don about gun handling is that weight of the gun alone is a terribly poor indicator of handling characteristic(s). It is generally assumed, as was by me, that a lightweight gun is too "whippy", and moves too fast. It is further assumed that this causes all sorts of maladies in shooting flying ........... stopping the gun when you fire, getting too far out in front, and others.
While weight plays a role in this, where the weight is concentrated in the gun plays a much bigger role. If the mass is concentrated in the "center" (the action), and the ends (muzzles and butt) are relieved of mass, the gun will indeed move very easily between the hands, often too easily, and we won't shoot it well. But when the same weight gun has it's center mass lessened and moved towards the ends it "slows it down" a bit, the result of having greater swing effort.
So, it is easy to see, once we understand this truth, that greater swing effort may be a great plus with a very lightweight gun, while less swing effort may be desirable for a very heavy gun. Don spun a little 4 lb. 14 oz. Yildiz S x S .410 of mine and found that the MOI of the gun was almost identical to that of many 12 ga. English game guns. It helped explain to me why I shoot the little featherweight as well as I do.
Hope I'm not boring anybody with this, it's just extremely eye opening when the "light comes on" concerning gun weight.
SRH
