I have a new challenge this year.
I’m going to hunt quail with a 28-gauge side by side. It will be a dramatic change for me. I’m used to shooting quail with a 28-gauge over/under that weighs 67 lbs. I’ve just recently purchased from the Briley Gun room a Merkel 280E 28-gauge side by side that weighs about 5.25 lbs. It has 28” barrels and two triggers.
Talk about a change. Vicki and I shoot sporting clays nine months out of the year with Krieghoff K-80 12-gauges that weigh about 9 lbs. We hunt doves and ducks with Krieghoff K-20 20-gauges that weigh about 6.5 lbs, and both of these Krieghoffs have only one trigger. I’m sure it is going to take some getting used to.
Going into this challenge, I’m going to have to spend more practice time with this new gun than I normally would, but I think the benefits will far outweigh the extra preparation. When chasing quail through mesquite thickets, a gun that is light and quick to point is a necessity. The lighter weight allows you to hunt longer and mover quicker through the brush.
There is a basic difference between a field gun and a target gun. A field gun is light and can be carried a lot and shot a little. A target gun is heavy and is made to be carried a little and shot a lot. Target guns kick less because of their weight and spend most of their time in a gun rack. Field guns kick more (that’s why I choose a 28-gauge instead of a 20-gauge) because they are light, but they spend more time in your hands while you are hunting.
Perhaps the most dramatic difference between the Merkel and my normal over/under hunting gun is the two triggers. At first, it might seem awkward to some people to pull the front trigger and then move your finger to the back trigger for the second shot. In my experience, with some snap caps and two or three practice sessions at home, movement can become very natural and subconscious.
One great advantage of having two triggers in a gun game is when a wild flushing bird leaves the ground 15 to 20 yards out. It is much easier to simply move your finger to the back trigger and shoot the left barrel which has more choke in it on the farther bird. To do this with a single trigger over/under, you would have to change the barrel selector or shoot at a farther bird with less choke and risk crippling the bird.
The advantage that a double-barrel gun has over a single barrel gun (semi-auto and pump shotgun) is the ability to have two different chokes: a more open choke for close shots and a tighter choke for farther shots. For quail hunting, a skeet choke for the first shot is pretty much ideal. And depending on cover and how wild the birds are flushing, an improved cylinder, light modified, or modified should be used on the second shot.
The bottom line? It is much easier to switch triggers than to switch barrels when shooting game. This is why a single trigger gun will have a more pronounced pistol grip and a double trigger gun will have a semi-pistol grip or a straight stock. It is easier to slide your hand back and hit the back trigger if the grip is straight or has a more gentle slope.
Another difference that is perhaps more subtle is that the side-by-side only has to open one barrel-width to eject and empty from either barrel. So the side-by-side can be cleared and loaded with less motion than the over/under.
These differences have nothing to do with whether one type of gun is good or bad. They are just different. In certain situations, each gun has its advantages and disadvantages. The best gun for you to shoot is the one you shoot the best. That’s why I’ll be practicing my gun mount at home and shooting clays with my new Merkel before I go quail hunting.
As the hunting season heats up, we want to share something with you about defining success on a hunting or fishing trip. Vicki and I have been involved in sporting clays since 1984. In the beginning, we were fierce competitors, traveling throughout the country competing. Now we still travel, but we teach shooting more than we compete. It is a very rewarding career because each day we are presented with different challenges. Whether the problem is mechanical or psychological, we must be able to diagnose and solve the problem on the spot.
One of the reoccurring problems that we face is a shooter’s tendency to think of his score while he/she is still shooting. Nothing is more devastating to performance than keeping count of the hits and misses while competing. When your thoughts turn to your score while you are competing, your thought process leaves the present and goes into the future. You become tentative and go very mechanical with your thinking. You begin to shoot not to miss instead of shooting to hit.
When you play golf, you can’t think about swing mechanics and expect to play well. The same is true in shotgunning. You can’t think about the move, mount, and lead and be concentrating on the bird. You must practice your move and mount enough so that it happens subconsciously with some degree of proficiency, then and only then will you be able to concentrate on the target.
Invariably when we see shooters at competitions we ask how they are doing and they tell us about how poorly they shot. After they get through whining, we ask again, “How are you doing? How is your family, your job, etc?” After all, that was the original question.
The same thing happens when talking about fishing trips. We seem to equate success with filling a limit instead of how much fun you had. You are doing this to have fun, aren’t you? What does taking the amount of game you can legally take home have to do with how much fun you had?
We find in coaching competitive shooters that if we can get them to concentrate on what they have learned instead of their score, they continue to improve. They also have more fun regardless of what score they shot.
The same can be said for hunting and fishing. When filling a limit is the only goal, little is learned and you have given control of your success to something you can’t control. If, however, every time you go into the field, your goal is to learn something new, you have total control of your success. You will also have an increased awareness of what is going on around you and you will be willing to try new things that otherwise you would not have taken the time to try.
In duck hunting, it is wind direction, decoy positioning, not calling too much, and being able to hit what you are shooting at. When was the last time you just sat in the blind and observed the ducks as they worked on your spread? You just might be surprised at just how much you can learn by simple observation.
How much movement is too much? Why when you are picking up decoys, do they insist on landing on you? How much calling is too much or not enough?
If your goal is to just get your limit instead of trying to learn something, you are probably going to blow too hard and too often and shoot too soon. Take the time to go and observe the birds you are going to hunt. You just might be surprised at what you will learn. It’s not what you know that makes you better; it’s what you are willing to learn.
