16ga.com ~ View topic

Guest

Disclaimer: Only sightly 16 gauge related.

So, having bought the NID Field Model 16 and having had a pretty fair time with it at trap the other night, I think my double-gun addiction is probably at rest for a while. Wrong.

Go to another club the next day, and there's a like-new 12 gauge Stevens 311D with "$350, Bob" on it. Case colors are 100 percent. So I give it a good looking over, and it's indeed in really nice shape, solid and stout. A "classic" 311, if you will. So I ask Bob, "Take $300?" and we do the deal.

So a little later, I get the thing out on the trap field. From 16 yard, I probably hit 18 to 21 with it. I'm shooting the Winchester 1 oz. Extra-Light target loads in eight shot. I go back to the clubhouse with a grin. I've still got a box of those shells left, and the skeet squads are thinned out, so I go back down to the trap fields.

The kid has reeled up the voice pulls on the field I'd been shooting on, but the next field is wide open and the pulls are on the 21-yard line. So I shoot from there, and only lost two birds out of the 25. Did it entirely w/o a thought. Looked at the bird, lifted the gun to the cheek and let rip...and I was smoking 'em. And I'm not a very good trap shooter.

I walked back into the clubhouse smiling like a little kid. I grew up with a 311 and I know they're not exactly graceful or stylish, but I think this old gun and I are going to have some fun. And the whole two-trigger thing is coming right back to me.

Good times. Very Happy

Nice! Congrats! I have to admit to being one of those poor slobs with a soft spot for Stevens doubles. There's just something so American about them: solid, unpretentious, completely honest and totally reliable Very Happy

! Shoot it in good health and enjoy...

Fin

Guest

It's funny -- in the safe, it looks like a 4x4 next to that sweet little NID in 16, but I still I like it.

Gave it a detailed cleaning, and I think this gun sat cased in a closet more than it got used. Few dings in the wood, but the case colors, bores and working metal are all pristine. I really don't think it got carried or shot much at all. I'm going to give it more work than it's previous owner(s), even if just for recreational trap.

I don't know what the Blue Book says about what I should have paid, but I'm tickled with it. Looks and feels like my first shotgun, 'cept I apparently shoot a little better now. Thank god for small favors. Hate to think I wasted all of that money on shells.

Member Joined: 08 Nov 2005 Posts: 3438 Location: Illinois

A new favorite gun Very Happy

Guest

For now.

You know what's funny: Serious disciples of all the big clay games (clays, skeet, trap) all have a lot of advice when a guy's not hot hitting terribly well with a particular gun. I think they forget sometimes there are guys like me ... yahoos who just want to play with different types of shotguns and become reasonably good with whatever they happen to pick up. Until lately, I was solely an O/U guy, and I'd ride myself if I didn't score well.

Then I said the hell with it. Just have fun. So, now sometimes I shoot the "wrong" gun for a given game. I'm just working a gun out, seeing how it comes up, finding the "sight" pitcures for that gun. In short, trying to learn about me and different guns and how we go together. I can still go 20 plus at trap or skeet (low gun on both) but clays I'm afraid I'm only a 50 percent guy. I suppose I could work hard at it and get better, but I'm not sure I want to.

I just want to burn some shells up, see what a particular gun is like, then take a few of them hunting over the course of the season. And I'm having a lot of fun. I'm really eager for the 16 BPS arrival, so I can see what she and I can do together.

Eventually, I suppose I'll settle down, pick a game and a gun and stick to it, but for now I'm just happy being a hunter who plays with guns in the off-season. I want to work guns out and learn stuff about my guns and my shooting, not necessarily worry about my score. For me, it's about relaxation and learning more than it is about scoring welll or coming along in a given games discipline.

Therre's time for that later, IMO. Right now, I want to do silly things, like shoot a round of clays with my Model 42 and with my 311. Maybe it's just preference or the so-called "learning curve," but I want to experiment, have fun and experience different types of guns and shells and shooting styles right now.

Am I weirder than the "average" 16-gauge gunner? Shocked

Member Joined: 18 Aug 2006 Posts: 114 Location: Tucson, AZ

I thought everybody took 4 or 5 guns in 2 or 3 gages to the trap range.

That's why you go, to shhot them and have fun.

??Isn't it??

Very Happy

rayb