# My first Over Under



## zigzag (Oct 4, 2011)

I just Picked up a Franchi Instinct L in 12ga 28inch

My first Over under and I'm excited to report back after I bag a few Pheseant with her. I was shopping for Ruger Red Label but decided on the Franchi.


----------



## einspänner (Sep 8, 2012)

Beautiful! I think I'll be entering the gun market sometime in the next year. That one is a bit out of my budget, but one day...

I was wondering what you guys were up to. We had a new member the other week from north of Seattle looking for someone to train with in the PNW, so I thought of you and Rojo. Here's the thread if it's something you could help with. http://www.vizslaforums.com/index.php/topic,27690.msg198050.html#msg198050

Happy Hunting!


----------



## R E McCraith (Nov 24, 2011)

As you enter the world of long guns - you hunt your V - BRAVO !!!!!!! - sorry 2 say - you will look 4 the best of the BEST - just like your PUP - FIT 2 you - engraving -the wood - a hand checkered stock - a hand filed game rib - this list is endless - 2 the rest of the forum - go with the BEST gun you can find - fit 2 U - at the end of the DAY - your great grand children will shoot it - seek out a small preimum gun dealer - they get the best of the best - because - the SO's go through them - strap a pipe 2 a broom stick - think I will still kill birds - butt ! a work of ART in my hands is PRICELESS !!!


----------



## v-john (Jan 27, 2013)

Me, I bought a Remington Sparta. It's heavy, and not much of a work of art. It fits, it goes bang when I shoot it, and I can hit my target, so that's good enough for me. It was what I could afford, and to me, guns are tools. That being said, they are tools to be kept in good shape and thusly, passed down from generation to generation. I'll never sell a gun that my dad gave me, that's for sure.


----------



## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

VJohn
From Russia with love.

We do have some pretty guns, but they are more safe queens.
Take them out to shoot a little skeet, but they don't see the field.
I don't want to be worried about getting scratches on one of them.
My Browning Citori has plenty of marks on it from the field, and I've carried that gun through all kinds of brush. My new gun is camo, light weight, and will never be a safe queen. If it gets scratched, I'll just rub some dirt on it.


----------



## R E McCraith (Nov 24, 2011)

Zig - look at the Sportarm site - they have long guns 2 DIE 4 - only if you have a large insurance policy - LOL


----------



## Saltwater Soul (Jan 17, 2013)

I made three different dove hunts this past Thurs/Fri/Sat. Got to shoot three different guns.

Day one was super high flying whitewings, so I shot the Beretta Extrema II 12 ga.

Day two was young mourning doves decoying to a Mojo so I shot a little Browning 28 ga over/under.

Day three was something of a mix of the two previous so I shot a 20 ga over/under and the Extrema again.

Tons of birds and limits each day. Loved the variety of shoots although I burned through a lot more shells on the first day. I love the O/U's but the semi-autos sure are soft shooting and forgiving when you have to shoot a lot.


----------



## R E McCraith (Nov 24, 2011)

Salt ! in life you can NEVER have 2 many long guns - like you - match the gun 2 game & hunting conditions - 4 doves shoot a 28ga Merkel S/S or a 20ga Beretta EELL O/U - load the first barrel with a light load the 2nd with a heavier load - do love long shots !!!!!- as always - match the gun & load 2 the bird that will KILL it - I hate 2C a wounded bird fly away !!!!!


----------



## zigzag (Oct 4, 2011)

I think this gun has some good Mojo. First round I fired out was #4 3inch Heavy Steel. We worked a 300yrd fence row, must have been a runner because he went on a solid point halfway down. I thought for sure I would get a flush...Nothing, We then worked the fence row to the end and sure enough he locked up tight. I could hear that bird kicking around in the black berrys, just waiting to flush. Sure enough he flushed straight up and I fired my very first round out of my new gun and I didint miss


----------



## redbirddog (Apr 23, 2010)

http://redbirddog.blogspot.com/2013/03/grandfathers-shotgun.html

Posted with pictures March 10, 2013 on Redbirddog

GRANDFATHER'S SHOTGUN​Funny thing when you come upon sixty years old. You meet your mortality. Ten years? Twenty? No more that thirty and my life will be a memory of just a few people. Thing is: I am fine with that.

I think about how I found hunting behind a Hungarian Pointer just five years ago. Hunting, itself, had never held any special place in my life. Did not grow up around hunters and in the outskirts of the city of Riverside in Southern California, the only field game were scrawny jack rabbits.

Now I am a grandfather of four great young grand kids and life is good. A friend, who also owns a Vizsla, and I were talking about the current generation of Vizsla owners. How the vast majority of them will never hunt or explore field trials or hunt tests. It just isn't important to them and their relationship with their pet.

So that got me wondering that when I leave this body to start again, I wonder what happens to my little 20-gauge over-and-under shotgun? Like my Bailey (Chloe is gun shy), my little shotgun has gone with me on a some wonderful fall walks through harvested fields of grain and landscapes a poor Southern California boy in the 1960's would never had expected to experience.

I was a Boy Scout from age about 10 until 14. Once a month we would go on a camp-out. We learned how to shoot a .22 rifle at camp one year on a rifle range (I liked it). We learned to start a camp fire, pitch a tent, pack, and once we hiked 50-miles into the mountains. I was the Senior Patrol Leader, and I was responsible for thirty or so fellow very lower-income family boys. Survival and being good stewards of the wild places we went to were important. Our adult leaders tried to instill into boys who, for the most part, had little chance of going to college or breaking free of poverty. Most didn't and some never saw 40.

Learning to be an honorable man was taught, and we learned that there was nothing wrong with hunting for food as long it was done in a ethical and humane way. The Boy Scouts get a donation from me every year. A very worthy organization.

But what will be the fate of my little CZ 20-gauge that has and will serve me the rest of this life? Will one of my grandchildren want it? Will it be cut up in some government-required turn-in of all firearms? 

I don't know the future; I only know the present. The Hungarian Pointer is a hunting dog. The shotgun goes with the Hungarian Pointer like the left shoe goes with the right.

If you are reading this, you most likely have a Vizsla. You may never have hunted or even wanted to. Guess I would ask, "Why not?" Fear of the gun? Fear of hurting something? Fear of failure? 

Some will read these words and not understand why I hunt now. It is not because I can't buy food almost as good as pheasant. It is not because I love to kill things. It is not to prove I am a man.

The reason I hunt is to be part of nature. Not the cute caricature of "Mother Nature" but the nature that does not judge right or wrong but only understands survival. To hunt and to fish are to be able to survive on your own terms without the NEED of some outside force or entity bringing heat, power, food, and water TO you. To be able to take care of yourself and your family no matter what, that is where hunting comes in for me.

Grandpa's shotgun will always fire straight and true because that is what a good shotgun does. Who pulls the trigger after me? Time will tell.

I heard someone say once on the radio a few years ago: "On your headstone after your name will be a date of birth and a date of death separated by a little dash. That dash is our lives."

Live it to the fullest and let your Hungarian Pointers join you in that adventure we call life.


----------



## zigzag (Oct 4, 2011)

Well said Redbirddog. I might end up back in California, where I grew up. It would be a pleasure to meet with you Baily and Chloe. I may be from a slightly earlier generation of California Natives, but I have my share of experiences growing up in the Bay Area. Happy Hunting.


----------

