Beretta Blog

With many things in life, I deliver better results with aggressive time limitations. There’s nothing like a tight deadline to make me focus and produce. Unfortunately, shooting isn’t one of those activities. In fact, adding a time crunch to basic shooting tasks has the opposite effect of degrading performance, sometimes to near comical levels.

For seemingly forever, layering systems have been an integral part of our sporting lives. Back-in-the-day we wore a t-shirt followed by a cotton shirt accompanied by a wool sweater and then a waxed-cotton coat. If the coat was tan, it doubled in a duck blind, and if not it was traded for one with a camo pattern. These natural materials felt great, they worked well, and we were comfortable. Sometimes we got wet, other times we got hot, but usually, we were cold. No one complained for it was part of hunting.

If you want to become a better shooter, you must measure your both your current skill level and your progress. You can measure and track accuracy results, and depending on your personal goals, that may be enough. For recreational shooting and some types of competition, time may not matter. However, if you want to improve your defensive shooting capabilities or perhaps move up the action pistol sports ladder, being able to shoot accurately under time pressure becomes important.  

A simple shot timer is a great addition to your range kit. Here’s what you need to know about how they work. 

Last Saturday I really wanted to run my dogs. They looked bored as ever, and it's time for pre-season conditioning and handling. Truth be told I was also bored and needed some of my own conditioning. I've had my fair share of fishing and ice cream, and my thoughts turned towards bird hunting.

I've never seen a bird dog get shot, but I hear of at least one instance per year. When the stories roll in, I get sick to my stomach. They unfold in pretty much the same way. A group of folks reviews the pre-hunt safety talk. All have heard it before; all are in agreement. The dogs are cut loose, the hunt is underway, and spirits are high. Jokes fly around, the conversation is light, and everyone agrees they are more happy in the field than at work.

It's dark when you pull up to the only breakfast place in town, but your guide is already there. How do you know? His is the truck with dog boxes in the pick up's bed, and it's towing, a trailer full of, you got it, more dogs. Your guide knows where the birds are, his dogs are sharp as tacks, and he wants the day to be your trip of a lifetime. It's team play from here on out.

Here are the things your guide hopes you've done in anticipation of your hunt.

The Mallards took a quick look at the spread and kept on booking. They were high in the sky with the afterburners on. Maybe they were en route to yesterday's buffet, or maybe they saw something they didn't quite like. It didn't matter 'cause your guide hit 'em with a mix of calls. There were a few comebacks, a begging hail call and when they got closer the quacks and contented feeding sucked 'em in.

A good guide will make or break your hunting experience, but there's a lot to know about your roles in the guided hunt. Here are some things that your guide would like to see you do to guarantee safety and success.

Wingshooting skills would be so easy to learn if we were shooting laser guns. You know, the ones aliens carried in the “B” movies to project a continuous beam of disintegration at earthlings who refused to take them to their leader. With these mythical shotguns, we would just watch the beam and easily adjust for lead on any target no matter how evasive its maneuvers.

If you’ve ever set foot on a shotgun range, you know it doesn’t work that way. Learning to consistently center a shot pattern you can’t see on a moving target is to master physics, muscle memory … and a good bit of art. It takes time.

If you own a bird dog, let alone a string of 'em, then the odds are you're a fanatic. You know what their every movement and noise means. But if you're hunting over a buddy's dog, then you might not be as keyed into their tells. That's not a problem unless they're on point and you're far away. Here are some of the many different ways dogs give us clues about what's going on when they're hunting.

All boiled down, a target load is any shell you drop into your shotgun with the intent of breaking a clay target. That can be anything from the most bargain basement, off-brand promotional load to a $5.00-per-shell exotic metal non-toxic variety.