Spotlight on female models

Rachel Draper asks: should you be shooting a "ladies' gun"?

- Rachel Draper

Having been in the shooting industry for almost 10 years now, it is exciting and heartening to see the increase in female shooters and the general acceptance that it is a sport for all. There is no doubt that the rise in women donning their tweeds and taking to the peg has provided retailers a whole new market of potential customers and this does leave me wondering whether some products, such as ladies’ guns, are necessary or not.

I dabbled in clay shooting at the tender age of 11 but it wasn’t until my late teenage years that I started shooting regularly, with my first gun a tired, second-hand yet functional 20-bore Beretta Silver Pigeon. This did the job for a few months until I decided that I wanted something more substantial, and I moved onto a 16-bore round body William Powell Phoenix. Although it was a very attractive gun, I wouldn’t be quick to recommend a 16-bore to anyone as, in my experience, they have more recoil than a 20 and less weight to absorb it than a 12, leaving me with a somewhat bruised shoulder (potentially down to poor gun position I must admit). After a string of short-lived love affairs with 12-bore English side-by-sides, I eventually found the one, my 12-bore FP Baker, a Birmingham-made side-by-side from circa 1920 that is well-balanced, incredibly elegant and fits me well. It is a pleasure to shoot.

Market

This was around six years ago now and ladies’ guns were only just coming onto the market. There is now a plethora of female-orientated models from some of the larger gunmakers, such as the Browning B525 Liberty Light, the Beretta Vittoria, the Caesar Guerini Syren and the Blaser F16 Intuition, to name but a few.