David E. Petzal - The Gun Nut

My friend M.D. called me a few nights ago to say he had permission to hunt a field full of geese and did I want to come hunt? I was already leaning toward “yes” when he delivered the clincher: “You can sleep in. They’ve been flying about 9:30 so if we leave my house by a little after 8:00 that’s plenty of time.”
    In the morning I drove to M.D.’s house. We hiked two blinds and 11 full-body decoys into the field and had a great time, even though there was something about our little spread the geese didn’t like. A few flared outright, most slid off just out of range, but one flock worked close enough that I was able to kill a bird.
A few minutes later, three locked up and sailed into the decoys on M.D.’s side. I didn’t want to shoot over his head and deafen him, so I watched while he shot a double, then swung on the third and lowered his gun. Our bag limit is two and he wasn’t going to shoot my second bird for me. I never did kill a second goose, but I appreciated M.D.’s gesture, which is increasingly rare in the field.

Shooting party limits is the accepted practice among waterfowlers these days. The idea is to shoot out as fast as possible so you can: a.) get in and out of the field quickly so the birds will keep using it, b.) brag about how fast your party limited, c.) post pictures of dead birds on the Internet. Everyone shoots at everything, someone keeps a running body count, and when the group reaches their limit, the shooting stops. Then people start giving away birds because no one really wants to clean the ducks and geese they were so eager to shoot a little while ago. A lot of pheasant hunts run this way, too. I hate it.  I like a leisurely hunt where everyone has a chance to shoot at their own pace, with their own timing, without having to worry that someone will shoot their birds out from under them. 

I won’t shoot anyone else’s birds, nor do I want my birds shot for me. If I do limit before everyone else, I either unload my gun or shoot backup on cripples. Anyone else do the same, or are M.D. and I a minority of two?

My hearing isn’t getting any better as I get older, but my friends’ hearing loss is catching up to mine. I attribute that to my wearing hearing protection any time I shoot a gun on the range or in the field. 

In my early 20s I went on my first dove hunt, and burned through five or six boxes of shells in my old A-5 with a vented PolyChoke. (It was loud – I’m told Cutts Compensators were even louder).  At any rate, my ears rang for three days afterwards. I went to an audiologist, and tests showed a definite loss in my right ear; it’s the off-side ear that takes a beating and I am left-handed. Today I have a very difficult time understanding conversation in a noisy room. Worse, I can hardly ever hear turkeys drumming.

But, since that hunt, I have worn hearing protection for everything, even shooting air rifles, and my hearing hasn’t declined much more. At the range, I wear electronic muffs over plugs. On dove hunts, I wear foam earplugs. Hunting waterfowl and birds, I use those North Sonic Ear Valves, which have a mechanical valve that closes when you shoot. Some people tell you they don’t work, but to me they make a real difference. With them, I can hear flushing birds yet still protect my hearing. And, on those occasions when someone thoughtlessly puts a muzzle next to my ear and shoots, I can turn calmly to them and say “Don’t do that again,” rather than falling to the ground in pain, clutching my ears.

Does anybody else here wear earplugs in the field? Perhaps I have to say it a little louder: DOES ANYBODY HERE WEAR EARPLUGS IN THE FIELD? 

It’s a bad bird year around here, so people I know have been traveling for their pheasants. A friend of mine just came back from northwest Iowa, impressed by the numbers of birds but bemused at his reception by the locals. “They called me a girlie- man hunter because I shoot a 12 gauge,” Cody reported. “They said real men shoot 20 gauges.”

Me, I own guns of other gauges, but the half dozen I actually take out of the cabinet to hunt and shoot with are all 12s. Admittedly, one of the reasons I only shoot 12s is simple-minded:  I don’t want to get to the field only to find I’ve brought the wrong gauge ammunition.

Of course, all my ammunition would fit all my guns if I shot only 16s or only 20s, but I don’t. No other gauge comes close to being as versatile as the 12. Mine range from a double weighing less than most 20 gauges to a near 9-pound target gun with 32 inch barrels, and I shoot loads from 3/ 4 of an ounce (targets) up to 1 3/ 4 ounces (turkeys) out of them. The big bore of the 12 gauge helps it pattern well with a wide variety of payloads. If you shoot steel shot, it takes a hull the size of a 12 gauge’s to hold enough of the light pellets to kill a duck or a goose. And, as much fun as light, skinny small bores are to handle, I believe it’s easier to shoot well with a gun that’s a little more substantial and hand-filling.

All of the above seem like logical reasons to shoot 12s to me. Still, the idea persists among some hunters that small gauge guns are somehow more sporting and more manly because they give the birds “a chance” (A chance to fly off and die crippled maybe). Me, I will stick to my 12 gauges. Just today I had a shot at a rooster with a 25 mph north wind under his tail. By the time I got the gun up he was 35-40 yards out and quartering away. If I had brought a small gauge gun like the 28 my partner was shooting, I don’t know what would have happened, but when I shot my 12 gauge at the rooster, it crashed to the ground dead. If that makes me a girlie-man, I’m okay with it.

Today’s topic is Favorite Gun Movies, a category that includes any film in which movie makers actually try to get guns, hunting or shooting right. Winchester ’73 is a great gun movie (with showman-shooter Herb Parsons standing off camera, “stunt” shooting for Jimmy Stewart). Saving Private Ryan is a great gun movie. As a shotgunner, I really like The Shooting Party, a detailed look at a weekend of aristocratic driven-pheasant shooting on the eve of World War I.

My favorite, though, is 1975’s The Wind and the Lion. . It’s a hoot of a movie, a high-spirited, tongue-in-cheek politically incorrect tale of gunboat diplomacy in the era of The Big Stick. Set in 1904, it is very loosely based on a real historical incident, the kidnapping of American citizen Ion Pedicaris in Morocco by a Berber bandit named Risuli.

It has:

Brian Keith, perfect as Teddy Roosevelt. In the clip he discusses taxidermy and gun fit.

A pre-Murphy Brown Candice Bergen holding Dallas’ Steve Kanaly at gunpoint with a Model 97.

Sean Connery as a Berber bandit chieftain with a Scottish accent.

The Marines practicing a bit of successful regime change.

The Germans as the bad guys.

Lots of cool turn of the century ordnance, including Maxim guns, Colt Potato Diggers, Krag-Jorgensens, Model 97s, an 1895 Winchester, a broomhandle Mauser and more.

So that’s my favorite gun movie. I’ve seen it at least five times. The floor is now open to your nominations.