My Unmatched Pair & Etcetera Guns

Browning BSS's in 20 & 12 Gauges

A matched pair of "Best Guns" is only really a necessity at formal "Driven "Shoots" (and that could be red grouse in Scotland, pheasant in England or Central Europe or partridges in Spain) and both, Best Guns and Driven Shoots are luxuries that few people can afford (including me, unhappily). However, it is unlikely that a single gun will meet all your shooting (translation from UK English: hunting) needs, and that is where an unmatched pair will shine.

In our rather stupid time, the majority of the hunters prefer the over-under or auto-loading shotguns, while a dwindling number stick to the "All-American" pump-action, but I am part of a certain minority that are passionate about side-by-side shotguns.

Clearly there is an elitist cult around the "Gentlemen's Gun", and many side-by-side shotguns sell not only for thousands of dollars, but for tens of thousands of dollars, but so do many over-under shotguns, and even a few auto-loaders and pumps (Winchester Model 12 Skeet 28 gauge anyone?)

On the other hand, there are very affordable side-by-side guns that are completely functional, even if less than refined, and perform very well afield (although they probably would scourge the elitist or purist side-by-side aficionado). Several times while hunting perdiz (Nothura maculosa) in Uruguay I had great shooting days using nothing more than a Stoeger Uplander, both in 20 and 28 gauges. This gun is made in Brazil by E.R. Amantino (a.k.a. Boito) as the model A-680 and retails in the US for no more than four hundred dollars.

But let's get back to the unmatched pair. Bird hunting or shooting is as diverse as the species we pursue and although we could use your waterfowl gun for upland birds or vice-versa, the result may not be the best. Luiz Alves Flores in his short-stories "Caçadas" (http://www.estacaocapixaba.com.br/temas/memoria/cacadas/) tells of a gentleman that ordered two Sauer shotguns from Germany, a 20 gauge for upland (or forest) birds and a 12 gauge for waterfowl.

And this is the approach that I took. My first unmatched pair was a set of Spanish made Laurona box lock shotguns. I bought both used at On Target in Kalamazoo and initially they had Prince of Wales grips and cheeckpiece combs. Eventually my friend Bill Berghuis transformed the stocks into nice straight grip or English hand and removed the cheeckpiece that virtually eliminated any cast-off.

But several years ago I acquired a Browning BSS 20 gauge on a trade with another friend, Mitch Garvey, and since then I've had a fixed idea of having another unmatched pair. The BSS may not be the quintessential "game gun" as they have pistol grips, single non-selective triggers, beavertail foreends and are somewhat heavy, but they are among the most robust and durable side-by-side shotguns ever built; maybe a poor man Model 21.

Well, earlier this year during an unplanned and not to be discussed visit to Cabela's Gun Library in Dundee, Michigan, I completed my second unmatched pair, when I acquired a Browning BSS 12 gauge. While I've used the BSS 20 extensively on clay pigeons, perdiz and doves in Uruguay and woodcock and grouse in Michigan and Ontario, so far I shot the BSS 12 very little, a couple rounds on Five-Stand and not many more on Skeet. The one problem I faced was often trying to find a second trigger for the left barrel, especially while shooting Skeet, and I have not faced the same issue with the BSS 20. I definitively have issues on how my brain is wired.

The BSS 12 would make a great watefowl gun, if I ever find time to hunt waterfowl, or for late season pheasants in the Dakotas, and for sure a great target gun for side-by-side shoots. In order to get optimum performance I may have to ask my friend Del Whitman to open up the current chokes (Modified and Full) to something more forgiving like Skeet and Improved Cylinder.

And with the help of the "inserts" shown in the photo above, either gun could also become a nice small game collector and survival piece. On the center is a 22 LR "insert" that can be used in 12, 16 or 20 gauge shotguns (I will talk about it in detail in the future) and just under the decoy is a 12/410 insert.

Well, I need to go now as I am getting ready to travel to South Africa this coming Friday for a week of bow hunting for plains game (what a misnomer) and bird shooting, and provided communications are available I will provide daily updates about this adventure in the Dark Continent.

The "Machinegun"

The Mossberg Model 152

A long, long time ago, when I was a very young boy (probably five or six years old) I went with my father a lunch that was part of some gathering or celebration at the home of Sabino Nogueira. Sabino operated the sawmill of Fazenda Perobas, that at one time belonged to my great grandfather and is the place where my father was born.

Sabino's home was just steps away from the sawmill, and it had an enclosed courtyard, shaded by old trees, and several tables were set there. By the way, this is the same place where I was once bitten in my left hand by Sabino's pet monkey, but that is another story.

On this ocasion, one of the visitor's was my my father's older brother, José Reginaldo, and he had with him one or all of his three sons. Sometime during lunch my uncle asked my father where was his "Winchester". At that time in Brazil, any twenty-two rifle was called either Winchester or Flobert, and many people would say that they had a Winchester made by Remington or Browning. (Browning was also a synonym for any semi-automatic pistol.)

My father said that Sabino had the "Winchester", and he produced it in no time and my uncle showed it to his son or sons and explained that this was an automatic gun, with a detachable box magazine and that the forearm could be hinged down to form a forward grip. "You only have to press the trigger and it shoots like a machinegun", I remember he saying.

And without any cerimony or other consideration my uncle told one of his son to out the machinegun in the car so they could take it home to the jungles of Mato Grosso. And I never saw or heard about that gun again...at least until yesterday!

I stopped at Great Guns (www.greatgunstc.com) just to brouse on things that I don't need but couldn't live without and found an unfamiliar twenty-two rifle at the used gun rack. As I handled it and started to explore its operation I traveled back in time four decades to my first encounter with a "machinegun". Of course I could be mistaken, but I could not find an autoloading twenty-two with a hinged fore grip made by any company other than Mossberg.

The gun I had in my hands was a Mossberg Model 152, a semiautomatic 22 LR carbine, with 7 shot detachable box magazine and 18 inches barrel, weighting 5 pounds. The stock is Monte Carlo styled with a pistol grip and includes a forearm that hinges down to act like a hand grip, with sling mounted swivels mounted on the left side of the stock. The cocking know or charging handle acts as safety when the bolt is moved back less than a quarter of an inch and the know is depressed against a slot in the receiver, almost like the safety of a Sten Gun.

The Model 152 was made from 1948 to 1957 and as was common before the 1968 Gun Control Act, it has no serial number. Its successor, the very similar Model 352, was made from 1957 to 1959.

The early ones had wood forearms, later ones have black plastic.

This particular carbine has an S-106 Ramp Front Sight which has four reticules, thin, thick, pin and ball aperture. All reticles pivot on a shaft and can be easily selected by pressing a small latch in the front of the ramp (make sure that the gun is unloaded before switching front sights as you will have at least yor hand in front of the barrel).

The rear micro click S-130 peed sight mounts on the left side of the receiver with two screws and is fully adjustable. The graduations on the elevation and windage screw knobs with corresponding clicks, represent 1/2 minute adjustments, equivalent to 1/2" change of bullet impact at 100 yards, 1/4" at 50 yards or 1/8" at 25 yards.  It is well to remember to move the rear sight in the direction in which it is desired to move the bullet on the target.  If the bullet shoots low, raise the aperture by turning the elevation screw to the left, marked "up" on the elevation nut, or counter clockwise.  If the rifle shoots high, turn the elevation screw to the right, or clockwise.  If the rifle shoots to the left, move the aperture to the right by turning windage screw to the left, or counter clockwise.  If the rifle shoots to the right, move aperture to the left by turning windage screw to the right, or clockwise.

I believe that the sights alone set this little rifle (or carbine with you prefer) apart from the run of the mill guns, and if made nowadays the sights alone would be more expensive than the average current production twenty-two rifle.

Since yesterday I put almost ten rounds of Aguilla's Super Colibri's through my new Mossberg Model 152 (the Super Colibri will not cycle the semiautomatic action, but it is the only safe alternative for my basement range), and at thirty feet it has not yet missed an empty 12 gauge shot shell. I will have to bring this little carbine to Neverland to shoot "full power" loads and see how it works.

Am I one hundred percent certain that the 152 is the same model gun that my dad had and that was lost after I saw it for just a couple minutes forty years ago? No, not one hundred percent, but I am convinced enough to have this machinegun as connection to a very distant past.

The Fruits of Neverland

The first fruit of Neverland

Last Monday, "Star Wars Days" (May the fourth), Neverland beared its first fruit in the form of a twenty pound gobbler with a nice long beard that was harvested by my friend Del Whitman from the Cedar Clump.

Since I was not present at the event (due to work, which many times gets in the way of my hunting, but in the other hand really pays for my hobbies and everything else), I will ask Del to eventually provide the details, but knowing Del he probably used a 3 1/2" 12 gauge shell with a payload equivalent to a WWI Shrapnel 60 pound grenade.

While the turkeys like Del, they clearly don't love me. On Monday evening and yesterday (Saturday) morning I spent several desolated hours waiting for Mr. Meleagris gallopavo but ended both days literally empty handed.

Let's see what next weekend reserves to me!

Finally, Sensible Rules!

And who could argue with that?

Yesterday I met my wife at Cabela's in Dundee, Michigan, without any second intentions. We arrived almost at the same time and spent sometime touring one of my favorites playgrounds. First we grabbed a couple bricks of twenty-twos (just to keep pressure on the heated demand), perused the "Gun Library" where I found at least another gun that I want, but that I am not allowed to buy until all kids graduate from college, and then explore the "Bargain Cave" that was relocated to the second floor by Camping and where I found a couple "essentials", including a windbreaker that I used today while shooting trap during the windy cool evening.

Then we searched some sales racks for hopeful "safari" trousers and finally we visited the Home department where we found a very comfortable recliner that we just can't fit in our home without major redecoration (but before the redecoration I want the Krieghoff double "express" rifle from the Gun Library).

And in front of the recliner there was a print (that we also can't fit in the home without major redecoration) that just professed a compendium of truths in the form of RULES TO HUNT BY and RULES TO LIVE BY.

I don't need to repeat those rules as you will be able to read them in the photo above, but I hope that you share my appreciation for their depth, relevance and truthfulness.

Now, if you disagree with these rules I just hope that you have something of value to replace them!

The Bridge on the ... Mann Creek

Del putting the finishing touches

Somewhere in the hinterlands of Leelanau County, in northwest lower Michigan, the Mann Creek cuts the southern portion of Neverland, almost exactly halfway between the Equator and the North Pole. There are no roads through the "vast" thirty five acres wilderness, which is mostly lowland cedar swamps crisscrossed by tracks of elusive whitetail deer and boisterous turkeys, plus a couple majestic white pines, some red maple and too old poplar and dead or diying ash trees.

Neverland came to be in September last year during a challenging period of time, and the rational justification is that an investment in real estate would be a diversification of my retirement portfolio. The reality is that Neverland is my commitment to conservation and wildlife. Even if it is only thirty five acres, it is thirty five acres that will not become another subdivision, strip mall or parking lot during my lifetime.

Last year no deer paid the rent for the privilege or roaming Neverland, even if the game cameras and tracks showed plenty of evidence. To add injury to insult, some of the more adventurous animals decided to bed under two of the tree stands!

My ultimate sporting goal is to one day collect a Michigan Macnab within the boundaries of Neverland, at least in the course of one season. A whitetail buck, a ruffed grouse, and a brook trout from the cold clear waters of Mann Creek.

But in the meantime there are other ways to collect the sweetness of my little piece of paradise. As soon as it is warm enough, a couple of beehives will be placed in a clearing with plenty of sun light. The problem was that without roads we would have a lot of trouble to transport the hives to the optimum location. So, we had to blaze a trail.

We located a likely starting point in the southern border, and not to far from the road we came to the banks of the mighty Mann Creek, and in order to allow the heavy equipment (Del's wheelbarrow) to move across it we had to build a bridge.

Last Saturday after finally getting my son Daniel out of bed we started our adventure. First we stopped at Sam's Club for provisions as a construction crew, like an army, works on its stomach. Shorlty after we were at Menard's buying building materials. And just before 1:00 PM we met Del at Neverland.

First we transported all the provisions, building materials and tools to the banks of the Mann Creek, and then Del selected suitable cedars that would become the main beams of the new bridge. After felling the trees and branching the logs we placed them across the almost six feet width of the creek, or could it be seven feet? After that was the laborious work of afixing the four foot wide treated planks that would allow even the heaviest wheelbarrows to move across the soon to be completed bridge. An in order to do so we had to wade into the swift cold waters, and at that time Del found out that his boots had a hole just below water level.

With just over of the bridge deck in place Del lost a drill bit and tried to fish it out, but even being from Minnesota, he could not stand the cold long enough to locate it. But this minor incident was not enough to sidetrack us.

I believe that Daniel was the first to cross the bridge, and to celebrate the completion of such a fantastic engineering achievement we uncorked a couple bottles of Pilsner Urquell and toasted while I whistled the first part of "Colonel Bogey March" (or for those less enlightened, the theme from "The Bridge on the River Kwai").

At the following picnic we had croissants, roosted chicken, prosciuto, salami and bresaola.

We accomplished a lot more during the remaining of th afternoon, and at the end of the day I managed to lose my CRKT Swindle, but that is another story.

The Gun That Needed Inventing

The "ultimate" shotgun

A long time ago (I think close to two decades), my family and I were having dinner at the home of our good friend, John Coningham, at this home in Campinas, Brasil, and after dinner the conversation moved towards guns.

I can only describe Mr. John, as we cal him, as a renaissance or maybe encyclopedic man, due both to his abilities and broad interests and field of knowledge. In over seven decades Mr. John was a non-commissioned officer in the Brazilian Army (first Coastal Artillery, then Cavalry), a technician at the Winchester Ballistic Laboratory, cattle manager at one of the largest ranches in the world (Fazenda Bodoquena), bridge builder in the Amazon in the 1970's, languages teacher and nowadays a tourist guide in the Brazilian Pantanal do Mato Grosso. Besides all that, he is a great writer (his books are finally available at Amazon Kindle), sketcher (the cover of the superb "Bodoquena - An Odyssey of the Brazilian Pantanal was done free hand with color pencils), accomplished artisan in both leather and wood, and a better than average naturalist.

But let's go back to our distant dinner conversation. As we were discussing guns and ammunitions, their designs and uses, Mr. John made the point that at that point in time, every gun that needed to be invented had already been invented, with one exception: a very precise gun that had enough power to kill a fly, but not enough power to damage walls, windows or household furniture.

And it is difficult to disagree with Mr. John. By the late 1990's, and to be truthful, much before that, the standards by which every other guns are measured were already mostly in place, and in my opinion they are the following:

• Revolver: the Smith & Wesson K-38.
• Semi-Automatic Pistol: the Colt 1911 Governmental Model.
• Hunting or target rifle: Mauser "98" action (the Blaser R-93 has great merits, but I just don't see it unseating the Mauser "98").
• Shotgun: here things can get a little more complicated depending on your personal preferences. There were no breakthroughts in side-by-side (lets select the Holland & Holland sidelock action, but from a functional standpont we could also pick the much simpler Anson & deeley boxlock), over-under (the Browning Over-Under, Beretta 680 or Perazzi MX-8 are all great examples), and pump-action (Winchester Model 12) shotguns. The exception is that the Italians continue to be particularly successful in developing the semi-automatic shotgun, and I am particularly fond of the Beretta A-400 design.

But back to the "fly gun" concept. The one downside of Mr. John concept is that he called for a highly accurate gun that could consistently hit a fly at one or two meters, but the problem is that not every user would be able to do so. Accurate rifle shooting requires training and technique, and that really limited the potential market.

We eventually took different paths, Mr. John relocated to the Brazilian hinterlands and I moved abroad, first to the Netherlands, and then to United States, where I live today, and the "fly gun" became a distant memory, until early this week.

During a business trip to Georgia, my colleague Bill Bridenbaugh told me about a Christmas gift that his son gave him, a plastic shotgun that shot table salt to kill flies or other pesky pests. That immediately got my attention and I had to find out more about it.

This "shotgun" is the Bug-A-Salt (www.bugasalt.com). Basically it is a pump-action single-stroke pneumatic airgun with a magazine that is loaded with table salt. Everytime you pump the action a pinch of salt is loaded in the barrel or chamber, air is compressed and a safety engaged. When you shoot the gun that pinch of salt comes out like a minuscule shot charge, and depending on the distance puts a pattern a couple inches in diameter over the intended target.

Since it is much easier to hit a close target with a shotgun than a rifle, the Bug-A-Salt designer effectively by-passed the "rifle training" issue and presented us a concept that can be used by basically anyone with minimum hand-eye coordination.

I just ordered one and will eventually report on its performance, but I already foresee that this breakthrough gun can have siginificant impact on our future: Obama and Feinstein will want it banned due to its 80 shot magazine capacity, ATF will want to regulate it because it has a barrel under 18 inches and overall length under 26 inches, PETA will try to impose a ban on fly, in particular, and pesky insects hunting and culling in general, and the states DNR's and Fish-and-Wildlife will want to regulate "fly season"!

In the mean time, I just wanted to congratulate Mr. Lorenzo Maggiore for bringing us the gun that needed inventing!

Eating Wild in a Very Civilized Place

Game Mixed Grill

On Sunday, February 1st, my wife and I walked out of Heathrow's baggage claim past customs to be greated by our dear friends Lidia and Daniel Freitas. We were almost neighbours when we lived in the Netherlands, and we had not seem each other for several years, since their visit to our home, at the time in Mattawan, Michigan.

After leaving the airport we drove to Windsor to meet their daughter Jessica, then stopped by their home at Maidenhead to drop our luggage, and very soon we were on our way to a proper pub lunch.

The Chef & Brewer has the looks of a real pub, including the low ceiling with plenty of old dark wooden beams supporting it, and multiple beer taps behind the counter.

Each one selected what I would call a "normal" dish of beef, pork, chicken or turkey, but not me. We happened to stumble in the first day of a month long "Game Festival", and hunter that I am, I just could not pass the opportunity to taste a bit of the British wilderness, even if it is rather civilized by certain standards (at another opportunity we may discuss wildlife and wilderness conservation versus land management and animal husbandry, but not now.)

Among a multitude of options I selected the the Game Mixed Grill, not because it was the largest as some of my detractors would point out, but because it afforded the greatest opportunity to taste different game preparations and their flavours.

The menu stated that the Game Mixed Grill presented "whole roasted red leg partridge wrapped in bacon and filled with stuffing, Scottish pheasant, pork and fennel patties, Gressingham duck sausages and wild Scottish venison medallions." The french fries were fresh and to die for, and the red wild berry sauce complemented the game very well.

My only complain is that the venison and partridge were slightly over cooked, and overall the duck sausage was the winner.

I believe I forgot to mention that this great meal was washed down by a great pint of Guiness. It looks like Ireland own the beer war!