Guerini Invictus High Pheasant

With relatively light barrels and good pointing qualities, Michael Yardley finds this gun an attractive proposition for rangy work – with, perhaps, a slight tweak to the stock.

THE Guerini Invictus High Pheasant is a new gun from Anglo Italian Arms, created with high birds and heavy use in mind. It has been developed from the Invictus competition gun (introduced in 2014), itself interesting because it has an action – a genuine innovation – that dispenses with a conventional hinge pin or trunnion studs. Instead, the barrels pivot on the action by means of detachable cams fitted to the front of the monobloc where there are normally recesses. These engage into the action (effectively the opposite of the usual plan, where load-bearing studs mate with recesses in the monobloc, or, where barrels pivot by means of a “hook” on a full-width pin). The advantage of this system is that the bearing surfaces are easily replaceable when or if the gun comes “off the face”. Guerini claims it’s good for a million shots and backs this up with a limited lifetime warranty.