Beretta Blog

With Hunters in a line, it’s not only safer, but there are more safe directions you can shoot. Photo credit Travelsd.com

A while back, I hunted with Mike Johnson, a friend who runs the Clinton House Game Preserve in Clinton, South Carolina. My son in law, Jeff Jordan, had just begun training his first Boykin spaniel. Mike owns some of the best bird dogs I’ve ever hunted over, and his Tillie is the best flushing dog I’ve ever hunted over. It was a treat for Jeff to get to hunt over Tillie and he was full of questions. As we walked up on Mike’s pointer, Tank, who was locked up like a concrete yard ornament, Jeff asked, “Why did you decide to get a Boykin as a flushing dog?” Mike’s reply was, “I got tired of walking out in front of loaded guns.”

If you want to start a bar fight, just bring up the topic of using lasers on handguns. Although they’ve been mainstream for years, there’s still an amazing amount of controversy, disinformation and downright bunk floating around out there. With that in mind, we figured it’s time to do a series of articles that together, will offer a comprehensive guide to handgun lasers.

Each year thousands of people make a great migration to the Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show (SHOT Show). It is the industry’s largest trade show and is attended by retailers, media and other industry professionals. This year was a bit different for me. My daughter, Lea, was finally old enough to take along. She had an amazing time meeting colleagues, suppliers and learning about products. While she was there she worked on intern and homework assignments. 

Lea had a lot of work to do, but a highlight was meeting clay shooting Olympic athlete, Beretta shooter, Kim Rhode.

I recently purchased a Px4 Type “C.” For those not familiar with this variant, it is essentially a “slick slide” Px4 with a double action type trigger.

Last time, I discussed the types of handgun-mounted lasers and how they operate. Now, let’s take a look at the “why” behind mounting a laser on your handgun. In other words, what are the benefits? Next in this series, we’ll talk about what some consider drawbacks. I consider most of the perceived drawbacks myths, but you can make your own decision when we get to that point.

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.