doublegunshop.com - home Forums Thread Like Summary - Target guns versus game guns...

I had something of a revelation occur today (the tequila therapy afterwards probably helped too), but I am so grateful that I finally got the chance to buy a good target gun to shoot sporting clays a year or so ago (& even a left-handed one that really & truly fits me), because if I hadn't, I wouldn't ever have gotten the chance to fully compare the two worlds. They are simply that different. Game guns are beyond wonderful; there's nothing like them for doing the job that they were designed to do, but....they simply suck as target guns. Strong language, I know, but they really do. If nothing else, guns were and are "tools" first and foremost, and you really should have the right "tool" for the job at hand. There are lots of guns out there that are very-good compromises, and they can serve well-enough in many arenas, (and some are even pretty great examples), but.... if you haven't had the chance to make that truly deep-comparison you'll never really know what you have been missing. You can be happy with said compromises, believe me (as I've owned several over the years) but you'll have deprived yourself of one of the great pleasures in this shooting life by not having the exact tool you really need for the job at hand.

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.

I own both SxS and O/U guns from 12b to 20b. No 'tiny' guns. But my Harkom 16b weighs 5/8, Lindner Daly 20b about 5/5, my Fox 16 weighs 5/15, and my Henry Atkin SLE 12b weighs 6/1. For bird hunting my SxS guns are better... lighter to carry, they move better, they have double triggers and, IMO, they get on an unexpected flushing bird faster. They also are much easier/faster to load than other types of guns.

My O/U guns (Browning Supers in 12b and 20b and a Perazzi MX20 20b with fixed chokes) perform well on clays and incoming high birds like typical doves. They are heavier than my SxS guns, of course, but once moving they develop momentum, which helps to smooth out the swing. But they are tiring to carry, slow to reload, and some people don't shoot them well because the off eye picks up the side of the barrels, which is detrimental to good target acquisition.

Horses for courses.

Chuckerman: I'd like to think that with a little practice, you can adapt to either. As far as "mastery" goes, I'm not holding out much hope at this point, but... proficiency shouldn't be too-much to ask. Different horses for different courses!

KY Jon has the right idea. Have several dozen guns of each type in different gauges and barrel lengths to minimize the damage you may do with excessive use of each gun. Several dozen of each type is only the minimum, not the upper limit.