What were game guns designed to shoot? A thousand to two thousand rounds a year, maybe. A modest shooter can do that in a month or two. And then keep right on doing it. In two years he will have shot a decade worth of shells through a true game gun. Clay target guns can handle the high volume of shooting with little noticeable wear.
There is only one thing to do and that is have multiple game guns and rotate their use to even out their wear. Ten or twenty ought to do it. To reduce wear on my hammer guns I bought 8-10 to shoot. Small gauges about the same, and box locks as well. Don’t forget pump guns, I didn’t. I have a rack of semi autos as well but could not tell you the last year I shot more than one of them. But had I limited myself to just one gun of any type it would have gotten an excessive amount of wear and tear. I even have gotten into the habit of shooting them from top of the rack to the bottom of the rack so they all get used, cleaned and maintained regularly. Unless it is too frail to shoot safely, every gun I own gets shot. Perhaps only one or two hundred rounds a year but the all get to play. The high grades as well as the plain ones. I don’t discriminate based on looks, age or beauty.
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