Free: Contests & Raffles.
With the ease of buying ammo online and having it delivered to your house, the 28 is a fantastic little round. You can buy premium RST Pigeon loads for $12.50 a box. Those little buggers are 1oz of #7 1/2's at 1300fps. I watched a guy smoke wild late season SD rooster after rooster with those loads..... Wih that said, I have a sidelock 12ga SxS coming my way that i really don't need. I have found no reason to need a 12 bore, but this one has a lot of personal meaning as it belonged to one of my best friends, and the guy who bred my current trial dog. He lost his life 2 weeks ago flying home from a hunting trip in Europe. I will happily carry that gun in the field and hopefully kill many, many birds over it in his memory. The last thing he and I talked about was me possibly buying that gun from him.
Over the years I have taken a good number of beautiful guns and tuned them for women shooters. And it breaks my heart to take a rasp to a perfect piece of walnut, leave putty where there was once a high gloss finish or bend a perfect blue tube. Most OTC shotguns just do not fit the average woman worth a darn!When my wife told me she wanted to start upland hunting I had her shoot one of my shorter LOP guns long enough to determine if it really was something she would enjoy. She hit not one single bird in flight, but confirmed that she enjoyed the experience of watching the rooster rise and the happy tail of a dog goin' birdy. It was time to get the right gun for her...and the decision was a really easy one for me. Franchi! There are a number of shotguns with adjustable drop and cast, but few that catered to her short arms so she could swing without being over extended and even fewer in the weight she preferred. After I cut down the stock to match her LOP we spent a few minutes each night for a week learning how to properly shoulder the gun and aiming at a piece of black tape on the wall without using the bead.Looking over her shoulder for a few days I started adding the shims for cast and drop. With the shortened stock I even made an extra cast shim to adjust a little bit more. By the end of the week she was always on the tape when the gun came to her shoulder. A few shots into a patterning board and the fit was confirmed. No piece of the beautiful wood or finish was harmed and the barrel was still as straight as the day it left the factory!I figured it was time to throw her in the fire so I booked a day hunt with Skip at Mayfield Flats reserve and had 40 roosters released. I told her I'd let her take the first two shots at any rooster that came up. Took less than five minutes before the Skagit pup put up the first rooster. She missed her first shot, missed her second shot and before I could get a clear shot she busted the bird with her third! Next bird one shot, then another bird first shot, then another and another... After 15 straight birds I decided enough was enough and started to shoot a few myself. By the end of the day we had not only picked up our 40 birds, but another 20 that had escaped previous hunters.After the hunt I asked her how she was liking the gun, "I love it!" Then I asked what she thought of pheasant hunting, "They don't make fun like that in the city!" She has been a bird huntin' fool ever since! And the Franchi still remains her choice when restocking the freezer becomes serious business!!
