Beretta Blog

The high desert is a beautiful place to hunt. I met Gio Schianna at the YMCA High Desert Hunt Club.

I didn’t even get to the Arizona line before I realized my mistake. The top was down and I was marveling at the rough mountains and remarkable terrain of the Nevada desert. It had already occurred to me I was going to be driving across the country on roughly the same route Todd and Buzz had traversed in their Corvette convertible way back in the 60s. I wasn’t in a Corvette convertible; I was in an old Mustang Convertible I’d just bought in Las Vegas. I should have driven back to Las Vegas and arranged for my wife, Cherie, to fly out on the next plane to join me for the ride back. It would have been a wonderful adventure, but I didn’t make the call. By the time I was half way across Arizona, I wished I had.

On Point: Chief and Sugar on point, with Kicker poised for the flush.

We were heading into the morning sun across a wire grass and scrub oak-covered knoll to pick up a long shot I’d just made. Spot, an English pointer, locked up and Joker backed. I assumed he was pointing my downed bird. The flushing cocker bounced in for the retrieve when the guide called, “dead bird,” and a single quail got up, flying strong and definitely not a dead bird. My wife, Cherie, was on the right side and downed the bird about 20 yards out. As the cocker headed out on the retrieve, another single popped out and I took the shot while Cherie was reloading. I broke my gun down and when one of the pointers moved forward, still another bird bounced out of the knee-high scrub oak, just as Cherie closed her gun. This one was hers, and she dropped the little bobwhite rooster in the wire grass. Incredibly, as she was reloading, another bird flushed and we eventually got six birds out of the spot within a few yards of where we eventually found my original dead bird. You can never predict how it’ll go on a Georgia quail hunt.

Like many people, I suffer from hearing loss. Within the last year, I finally decided that I’d had enough and purchased a couple of hearing aids.  I had a lot of questions about hearing aids - the first of which was why are the darned things so expensive.  But after learning more about them, I see why.  These are not just amplifiers; modern hearing aids are micro-computers that adjust sound levels based on computerized frequency mapping of the individual’s hearing.  I can’t tell you the impact of hearing sounds that I had not heard in years (truthfully decades).  It was striking and a bit overwhelming at first.  It seems that a person doesn’t notice gradual declines in hearing - the daily losses are so small that you grow used to them.  Then one day you realize that you’re not hearing bits of conversation and nuances of speech.  You start missing out on conversations and compensating for it, then you figure out that something has to change.

Last week, I was at a writer’s conference and it was shooting day. I was on the range with a good friend and outdoor writer who’s also a really good shooter, we’ll call him Glen. He was shooting a 1911 compact with a Crimson Trace laser and having a bit of trouble. I was standing off the line and watching the bright green laser point on his target ten feet away. The laser beam would rattle around in the center of the target for a second or two and then plunge a few inches down and left as the gun went off. 

I met Chris Cerino at the 2011 Bianchi Cup, just after the first season of the History Channel’s Top Shot TV series and as he was just starting his training company, Chris Cerino Training Group. He had an infectious, positive attitude and was a great shooter as well. Later, I took his four day Diagnostic Pistol Instructor Course and learned more about pistol shooting than I’d acquired in the previous 30 years of shooting and teaching people to shoot. Cerino has an analytical approach to training shooters. He’s thought out the issues that prevent good performance and has a way of presenting them that’s both revealing and helpful.

Shooting the Beretta ARX100 Recently I covered a “walking” tour of the Beretta ARX100. This time, let’s take a look at how it runs when you give it some gas.

I recently received a letter from a reader on the subject of long-range shooting and ballistics. I’d recently done a blog entry on zeroing rifles, and the reader advised me of some factors I failed to mention in the story. It was apparent he was much better informed about the science of ballistics than I, and I appreciated both his knowledge and his concern. Reading the email, and my subsequent response put me to thinking about something that can have a positive effect on the success of a shooter, whether for personal defense or as a hunter or competitor. Simply put, there is no substitute for mastery of the fundamentals.

Got a concealed carry gun? Or maybe you’re just thinking about getting one? No worries, either way, here are some holster options to consider…

What do you get when you combine 133 college students, from seven colleges with over a quarter of a million dollars worth of competition shotguns?

You get boatloads of clay dust and a lot of smiles.