My Browning Citron, or 525 as they are called in Europe, dates back to 1982 Ive had it for a few years, it was a farmers Goose gun in Scotland before I had it, and although things have worked out pretty well this is another example of 'Do as SBW says, to avoid having to do as SBW has done’.
I'll explain
There is only three things that matter when buying a shotgun: it's not fancy wood, high tech coatings, or mysterious voodoo forcing cones.
Does it fit? Does it fit? and Does it fit?
Length of pull, balance, and check weld are the whole deal. So only an idiot would buy one sight-unseen
off the internet.
I paid the farmer and he shipped it to my local gunshop, the owner was a bit sniffy about it as he had several gats for not much more, but I liked swing of its 28' tubes. Did some walked-up with it, shot a massive Hare. Took it to the clay ground and hit a few more than my usual dismal efforts and was well pleased. I kind of own a shot gun because you're supposed to, for the first few years I shot it not a lot and there was no decreeable improvement. Gamekeeping with the BambiBasher it amounted for a few squirrels.
Regular readers will know from an earlier edition of Shotgun Shenanigans I got Super Plumber started and he became very well versed and very enthusiastic very quickly. So the Citori saw a lot more daylight.
Having an adjustable cheek piece retro-fitted more than doubled the money I'd spent on the gun. A few minutes peering across the kitchen at Super Plumber revealed that I'd been looking down the right hand side of the barrels the whole time. A bit of Up and a lot of Cast later I was in a better place. A few more flying ashtrays met their demise. It gets better.
20 something years ago I went on a stag-do and at an outdoor centre we did some shotgun shooting. I was absolute murder on Rabbits [the clays that bounce along the ground] the tutor advised me to take up clay shooting and specialise in rabbits. For the next 20 years I'd been completely dismal at rabbits, I have probably hit less across the years than I did that day. Not any more!
"You're breaking them for fun" Super Plumber
Conventional wisdom has it that your gun-fit cannot and will not be calculated until your Mount is sorted.
I'm unconvinced. My mount became obvious only as soon as my head was in the right place, the two are so interrelated, its as though you need to choose your gun in a shop, with a helpful and experienced shotgun shot helping you to see what would be obvious, but won't be, until you've been shooting for a while.
Back in the mists of time, or 40 odd years ago there was a peculiar fashion for coating even nice pieces of wood in a thick layer of polyurethane varnish. It doesn't look good and when it scratches it leaves white disfiguring marks all over the gun. Fortunately even fairly stale Nitromors will dissolve it. The recoil pad wasn't original and had lost all of its give, so it was removed with extreme prejudice too.
Much sanding with wire wool later the Citori's true colours were showing through. I couldn't tell you which solvent finally cleared out the chequeing - I used several, a toothbrush and my thumbnail.
Eleven coats of x High Speed Oil later [I don't know what high-speed means either] at least I now know how I would do it differently next time, and it looks OK. Which is a metric shit-ton better than its looked in decades. One side borders on exhibition grade, the other is firewood adjacent.
How much money I've actually saved is open to debate, if both sides were WOW a lot, if both sides were firewood probably not that much. Having learned what I've leaned. I'd buy an older gun, with an adjustable cheek piece, from a specialist and pay whatever they asked for gun fitting.
In the year since I've made it fit I've shot exactly three thousand cartridges more than any year before. It's been a lot of fun. Super Plumber keeps extolling the virtues of a set of fancy chokes, I'll probably buy a thousand carts instead.
If only I could find those two screws that hold the trigger guard in place
Happy new year people
Your pal
SBW
