Shotgun Shenanigans Pt.2 Buying and Restoring a 40 Year Old Browning Citori

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

 

 

Shotgun Shenanigans Pt.1

This: I was bouncing down a farm track in a pickup with some deer managers, you know what these guys are like, they are always trying to sell you something, or some form of sporting endeavour where they can leave you in a field with the meter running and go for a nap in the truck .

DM: Do you do much pigeon shooting SBW?

SBW: There'd be little point

DM [ears up sniffing the wind, not the expected answer]: Why's that ?

SBW: I'm a total Chump with a shot gun. 

I have form you see, the day I met my culinary hero in a pigeon blind in Fife I launched a whole box of carts/shells at birds swooping in to the decoys, and hit exactly none. 

From this inauspicious start it's been up hill all the way.

In the UK shotguns are licensed in a similar way to rifles; the criteria are less stringent, but the process is the same. You can save a few quid by getting your certificates to run contemporaneously. I got my first shotgun because not that I expected to be able to do much with it, but because, like a historic rifle, you have to have one. 

A friend with a massive collection of firearms was out of work, so on a whim I asked if he had one he'd want to sell. No surprise he did, I collected the most unpleasant semi-auto anyone has ever seen from him and gave him £100 for it and some 1022 magazines. I came to think of them as expensive second hand magazines and a free shotgun. I was traveling home by train with the gun in the worst gunship I've ever seen. Another 'freeby'. It was a nice-ish afternoon, I sat on the station platform, two Polish chicks came to sit on the next bench, the train pulled into the station, I hopped up and was making the ten step journey to the doors of the train when the slip disintegrated, the zip gave up the coast and the little leather strap parted company. The shotgun clattered to the floor. The Polish chicks looked over and totally unconcerned got on to the train and continued with their day.

I scooped up the gun and got on too. In the toilet I had to quickly work out how to dismantle a semi, so I could wrap it in what was left of the gunslip.  It was a long nerve-wracking journey back to London as I awaited the intervention of the armed response unit. 

Shooter [who you'll know from other adventures] invited me to shoot geese with him for my birthday, I tried to make excuses, 'my gun is a disgrace, I'm slightly worse' but he would have none of it. "Everyone should own a semi-auto, you can clean it with Fanta and WD40 they are a perfect thing, you just need to practice".  We drove up north in perfect goose weather; blowing a hoodie, iced water flying horizontally into our faces. It was a spectacular piece of goose-ground. We walked out onto a strip of land with a fish farm on one side and a nature reserve on the other. a skien flew over at not far off head height, I missed the first one, manly through shock, downed the next two, added a shell and popped a third. The gun was now a proven slayer. 

Based on its record so far I can neither call it solely an unlucky gun, or lucky gun, but it certainly attracted attention. Not just from the goddess of the hunt. 

I took it clay shooting a few times with Foxy, the ACL, and SouthsideD. It's ability to hit things had largely deserted it by this point, but in fairness we did always say we were going 'for a laugh' and it provided those in abundance. 

The slide release is on the opposite side to the port, so reloading is counter-intuitive on its best days. I have never cleaned it, so it has some mud left over from the goose shooting, some blood from the same trip and a few comedy feathers travel in the same slip, now held together with more than one brand of packing tape. Strangers laugh at it. The ACL was unrelenting in his mockery. 

After a while I bought my Browning; in an equally undiscerning purchase, that by dumb luck turned out to be both a bargain, with nice timber, and a bargain that breaks clays.  

I was short of space in the cabinet and I'd been trying to encourage Super Plumber to take up a hobby so he'd not be driven mad. I gave him a cabinet I found in a client's garden, and filled out the forms with him. He'd gotten his ticket back from the cops, but was still making excuses about buying a shotgun. The same sort of excuses made by tool-fetishists everywhere "I only want the XYZ and I don't have the 2-3-4-or 5 grand they cost'. total bullshit of course. You should always buy the worst rifle or shot gun you can find [pretty sure I achieved that] as it will quickly teach you more about about what you actually want than any amount of reading other people's opinions on the internet. Then you'll enjoy the ecstasy of 'new gun X never see than piece junk again'. 

To give him his due, while it took Super Plumber a while to engage with the sport of clay-busting he's certainly been 'all guns' since he has. 

He'd been roundly mocked by the first person he'd shown his gifted Semi Auto to, undeterred he thought he'd buy himself something cheap and cheerful at the auction. Cheerful maybe.

If you're used to buying stuff on Ebay you have a wildly over-favourable view of the auction experience.  He'd bid on some piece of junk he could buy for the price of a couple of rounds of G&T's. Not receiving a 'you won it' notification, he shrugged his shoulders and tired again, didn't get a notification, bid on an inexpensive pair of Spanish guns,  still nothing. Assuming that he'd been too Yorkshire [tightfisted]  he waded in the next time. Nothing.  

The following afternoon he received a gloating email from the auctioneer 

Dear Super Plumber, we're delighted to tell you your bids were successful you're now the proud owner of six [shit] shotguns and you owe us £475 and 30% + delivery.

Needless to say, he's now on first name terms with his local gunsmith, and on the waiting list for a new gun that costs more than my car. 

More shotgun shenanigans to follow 

Your pal

SBW

 

 

 

CZ BRNO ZH202 - Cold War Combination Gun

12 bore CZ BRNO ZH202 over and under, 26 ins ported barrels, solid rib, 2¾ ins chambers, 14½ ins stock 

The ZH Series was introduced in 1958. It’s probably fair to call the design unconventional.

The ZH's were hand made. With that 'hewn from a sold lump' feel Mercedes used to have. Like many BRNO/CZ guns of the period, when compared with the Italians, the finish was a bit ‘wrong side of the iron curtain’, but they have a certain rugged charm. The only plastic is the butt plate, everything else is steel and walnut.  

The skeet barrels are 26" with the muzzle ends "flared" into a muzzle brake that looks a bit like the ventilated "cage" on the Cutts Compensator Skeet chokes of the 40’s and 50’s.  

The barrels are joined at the cage and the breech, with space between them for the rest of their length. and have fixed skeet chokes, made to cover a 30" circle at 20 yards with a nice, even pattern using most target loads.

There are other shotgun versions; fixed chokes, usually tight and barrels in either 28" or 30" and combination offerings. Durability is an understatement with these guns. The action is made to handle everything from 22 Hornet, and 5.6x52 [I know me neither] to 7mmx57R, and 7x65R. Typically over a 12g, although 16g were also available. The stock came drilled for recoil weights. 

A sliding breech block is pushed forward by springs when it is closed, and cams back when opened.

The barrels pivot on trunnions that project out of the sides of the barrel set and engage with slots in the receiver. The fore end is screwed to the barrel set and doesn't get removed during take down.

The two triggers are an interesting set up. Front trigger fires the top barrel only, the back trigger has two functions; 1st pull fires the bottom barrel, 2nd pull fires the top. This is for when you’re using a rifle/shotgun set up, the top barrel being the rifle. The auto safety is in the front of the trigger guard, like a U.S. M1, and set by two independent systems.

The lockup is very strong, the breech system was intended to allow other barrel sets to be matched to the gun with minimum fitting effort by your gunsmith. They are not truly interchangeable but required less fitting when installing a barrel set, than from many contemporary brands. 

This one slams shut with a bank-vault clunk and feels ready to do the next 50 years of service. 

More peculiarities as time and cash permit

your pal 

SBW

More Squirrel Hunting In The UK.

450 divided by 14 

We won a day's squirrel bashing in a charity auction. Months passed, various people dropped out, in the end it was the Ambulance Chasing Lawyer formerly known as 'Sailor', South Side D, and your pal SBW who made the trip to the west country. We took a fairly large number of cartridges with us. Thankfully.

What can I tell you; it wasn't quite the usual tale of incompetence but it wasn't the most cost effective carry-on either. SSD and myself were billeted in a local hostelry where the burgers were pretty good but we had to significantly mark them down on the fries. Half a dozen phat G&T's later the bed seemed comfortable enough. In the morning dehydrated by the evening's entertainments I awoke, stretched and gave myself a lovely dose of cramp. Once the tears had subsided I joined SSD for breakfast. Limping.

The ACL joined us for our repast then we set off to meet the keeper, a cheerful sort who, once the usual tall tales of game numbers were out of the way,  apologetically told us  'I've just taken over this estate it was the last guy who donated the day, totally happy for you to be here, but, small problem, my missus says there's water pissing though the ceiling so I'm going to leave you to it.' 

Regular readers will know that squirrel sniping has at one time and another been a preoccupation of mine, always conducted with pellet guns. SSD is a proven slayer of squirrels and instead of taking the crappy farmers gun approach that's seen me roundly mocked at more than one shoot, has made an investment. SSD has a licence for a tricked out tacticool shotgun that can hold many cartridges, ACL and I have cheapo semi-autos that are only allowed to hold three shells. Instead of disturbing the squirrel's Drey with a set of drain rods, SSD blatted away at them until they were either proven empty or the incumbents had been evicted into the arc of fire laid down by ACL and myself.  Within ten minutes of arrival we were right into it, then things slowed down for a couple of hours.  We trudged around taking it in turns to cynically decode the keeper's speech, now convinced the wood was shot out and we'd come an awful long way for three squirrels. We saw three Fallow and a Muntjac. We sat out a rain storm in a beaters lodge. 

Any day in the woods is better than a day at work. ACL doesn't seem to have grasped this and takes a string of calls about an electrical installation or rather the lack of one. It's hilarious. He's very good at withering sarcasm, but this doesn't seem to advance his cause. Which is also hilarious. 

The daylight is in short supply so we skip lunch and fuelled by chocolate give the densest area of woodland a blatting. The day springs to life and eleven more tree rabbits fall to the cloud of pellets.

In an honourable attempt to bring a timely end to a wounded squirrel SSD shoots at too close a range and the end of his shotgun opens up like a flower. It's a sobering moment and signals that's its time for burgers and home. 

More soon

Your pal 

SBW

  

Shooting Clays - A Lesson Or Two

The very first day the clay grounds take delivery of those barn door sized clays, 

I'm going to be lethal! Honest.

This week Shooter and myself set off in search of the elusive obvious - aka went to do some clay shooting. After last summers debacle in the pigeon fields of Fife my confidence with a shot gun was at an all time low. Shooter had once told me 'I don't play favourites if it goes bang I love it' and I'd confessed to him that I'm a total lummox with a shot gun.

Being the optimist that he is he graciously retorted " I cant believe that; either you are lying, very modest, or you've never been taught how to do it".  Any sunny afternoon in the country is better than one in the city, and buoyed by the thought that if I couldn't break any clays I'd at least be able to chip Shooter's optimism  I  joined him for an afternoon at the A1 Shooting Ground.

What Shooter thinks he's going to need a score card for I'm not sure?

Shotguns are easy, in the same way that that fly casting and archery are easy, its just that everything about being human gets in the way of the true simplicity of what you're doing. You know those people who over complicate things? Put four of them in a row and they still wouldn't over complicate things as much as me. It's not that I couldn't think my way out of a paper bag, its more that I could think of 300 ways to get out, but be unable to decide which one seemed most appropriate.

His  modesty makes a very poor disguise-Shooter smashes them up

Shooter works tirelessly with me on the basics,  and all of a sudden the clays start to break. But then I lapse back into thinking about it. Doh! Every clay that breaks is another example of the beautiful Zen of shooting, if Shooter distracts me while the clay's in the air I shoot it, left to my own devices I try aiming like a rifle and miss, sometimes by miles!

Claudio and Teresa Capaldo have a really nice set up: 40 acres just inside the M25 (london's beltway). There's none of the moodiness I've seen at other shooting grounds, a really friendly place. Claudio is an Olympic coach and while I watched him give Shooter a few pointers I could see why. I've known a few experts over the years and watched them struggle to reveal what is painfully obvious to them, to students who clearly aren't getting it. An expert coach is a very different thing to mere coaching-from-an-expert. When you see the real deal in action its striking just how little they have to do or say to get the penny to drop. The Northern Monkey and myself once went to shooting ground just outside York and received some of the worst tuition I've ever seen, when we arrived we could both break clays, when we left neither of us could, if we'd paid to learn how to dispirit newbies it would have been a bargain.

Watching Claudio handle the gun was something of a revelation to me too. For a start he puts gun-to-face-then-to-shoulder rather than shouldering the gun then planting his face on the stock. The whole movement seemed more lively and fluid. His 'ready stance' was also more lively, the bead (a shotgun's front sight) always kept at nose level - this made the gun jump to his shoulder as though it was on elastic.

This is the moment when the penny drops: you can see the look of revelation on Shooters face - with very few words Claudio shows Shooter the elusive obvious

I have heard this explained a few times but there was something about the way Claudio says 'it shoots where you look' then with a few words brings the connection between gun and body into conscious awareness, setting up an anchor for  Shooters's grip on the forend so his hold would become consistant. 'Fingers lower on the pistol grip, when you get home get a screwdriver and move that trigger much further back' With these simple pointers Claudio changes the whole way the gun sits in relation to Shooters body.
The whole exchange can't have lasted more than 90 seconds. If I'd known how marked the change would look I'd have taken before and after photos.

Thanks to Shooter, a great day out, and an interesting lesson in how to give a lesson too, I'll defiantly be going back for some coaching from Claudio.

If you've got any pointers or advice please leave a comment.
More soon
Your pal
SBW

Belgian 20 Side-by-Side

Field Sports In Scotland Pt.3

After our detour to the home of golf arrived at Andy's place where LongSword who had been shooting pigeons over wheat and had a stack waiting to be cooked up. He's been plucking them outside and claimed that the blizzard of feathers had been caused when the dogs had got at them. This picture was taken AFTER he'd 'tidied up'.

We feasted on the day's bag. The recipe couldn't be simpler, Pigeon breasts wrapped in Parma Ham seared until the ham is crispy and then left to stand in the oven a 100c for about 20 mins, served with potato salad. And beers.

The next morning I was woken from a deep sleep on the couch to be told people from Andy's Facebook group were demanding I be roused by the cold water method. Fearing that Andy's Facebook pals would lead him into bad ways we packed some sarnies and headed out.

Note: Secondary use for Gear stick - Dog-Chew

Andy dropped Longsword and myself off and we set up on the edge of our second choice of field,
the first being occupied by an Italian shooter we named 'Perazzi'. He was either the most productive Pigeon shooter ever or was rivalling even me for fudged chances, we reckoned he had a semi-auto as we only heard him fire a single shot once in the whole afternoon, and sometimes letting loose strings of four and five shots.

 Longsword had bought a 'Pigeon Magnet' with him. 

Its a car windscreen whipper's motor attached to two arms which rotate.

 You put a pair of the Pigeons you shot the day before on them and from above they imitate the wheeling of two birds coming in to feed.

Longsword was kind enough to lend me this Belgian 20 gauge Side-by-side. 

We spent an excellent afternoon, shooting the breeze, telling tales, and shooting pigeons, well Longsword shot pigeons, I shot fresh air and distinguished myself with an all time low score of 24 for none, zero, zilch  nothing, Nada.

The Excusses: a litany

1. I've not fired a shotgun in about three years
2. The gun was a very poor fit
3. The Coyote god was playing tricks on me
4. It was Longswords birthday and I didn't want to show him up

That's my story and I'm sticking to it
More soon
Your pal
SBW

Conventional Ammunition Seems Mild

Yes it's one of those 'filler posts' where I repost something amusing or interesting while I'm away from the laptop.

Back soon
SBW

Another Full Bore Fool

We've looked at the stupid things some people do with shot guns before. 

Those of you with strong stomachs can look at this reminder

Big shout to Bashing Bambi who found this. Shudder.

Be careful, walking isn't compulsory, being stupid is optional.

SBW

I want One - A Not So Occasional Series Pt9

As promised, more  lust. In fact a double helping

Having spent the evening with  CHJ yesterday I'm keener than ever to take that trip to his personal paradise in Italy.
Where we'll go in search of some wild boars; what sound like very big deer that have never seen hunting pressure and take a few casts at the trout that swim in his stream.

Prompted by Tom's comments on the recent post featuring that 'more money than Abramovich' double rifle.  

I've been looking at these, with just a little of that rifle avarice I seem to have developed of late.

The Finn Classic 512 shooting system is the current incarnation of the Valmet 412 (AKA Tikka 512) . 

The guns are made by Marocchi who manufactured the guns under contract for Tikka. 

The shotguns have an excellent reputation for being impervious to bad weather and built to last several lifetimes. Further set of barrels are available either as shotgun and rifle or double rifle. 

There is a review of the 'working mans double rifle' here. 

Personally I really like the utilitarian titanium coated look, fancy engraving only looks good when it's really really good and even then, while an admirer of the craft, I like tools to look like tools. The idea of a second shot appeals, there are some big boars in them tharr hills and the take down style would be a blessing traveling on Europe's budget airlines. 

I saw a set up in .308 with a swarovski rifle scope pre loved for £1500 a few months ago. It's seller described it as 'the ultimate boar rig'. But then he was selling it wasn't he.

Tom's comments about setting up the barrel alignment on double rifles by soldering and re soldering to get and keep the point of convergence have got me wondering though.....

As did learning that in .308 and 30-06 they don't come with automatic ejectors, (all other calibers do) can you really have a dangerous game rifle without them?

As ever if you have an opinion on the suitability, practicality, design or function of such a gun I'd love to hear it.
Your pal

The Bushwacker.

The Uplanders - Yet Another Kind Of Bushwacking

I've recently added a new voice to my blog roll. Upland Feathers is a site dedicated to the thrills and spills of bird hunting on the other side of the pond.
Robert (half of the husband and wife team who put it together), says it's 'for sporting adventurers who have a passion for grouse, pheasant, quail, woodcock, and wild turkey hunting'.
Here in blighty the game bird season has just finished, (the pigeon season never ends) and doesn't start again until the autumn (fall). I was hoping (PLEAEEEESE BABY) to get back to South Dakota this summer to take on the challenge of Ringnecks.
If (yes dear 'when') that plan fails I'm hoping to get back to the eastern US later in the year to hunt that legendary American game bird, the turkey.
That's how I came to have read Upland Feathers. The sites a very useful clearing house of information for the visiting hunter.Featuring Where-to hunt on public lands - Public Lands! there is NO PUBLIC LAND in the UK. NONE. They also introduced me to the term 'Unboxing' which is basically the joy of taking new gear out of the box - and who doesn't love that? They follow it up too with 'In the field' gear tests and reviews the services of the guides, lodges and outfitters who can put a trip together for you. Interestingly they cover the political climate for hunters by keeping up to speed with the latest regulations from state and federal wildlife agencies and the local habitat Conservation programs.

Worth a look even if you're not planning on being there any time soon
Thanks for reading
SBW.

Picture credit dakota-pheasant-hunting.com