A gun for all occasions

If you had to choose one gun for all your shooting, what functions would you need? Tony Bracci lists the essentials

- Tony Bracci

If you had to have one gun that would work for you in all your shooting, what would it be? This would not necessarily be your dream gun and some tough choices would have to be made.

We are talking here about someone who shoots clays regularly and has the occasional day pigeon shooting. They are also in a rough-shoot syndicate and get invited on two or three formal shoots a season. They attend charity shoots and love a simulated game day. However, we are not dealing with any disciplines that require specific equipment – Olympic trap, for example.

Fixed-barrel shotguns, pump and semiautos are out of contention as you can’t shoot them on formal driven days. That leaves us with side-by-sides and over-and-unders. A side-by-side is perfect for game shooting and there is nothing stopping you using it when shooting clays. However, I think an over-and-under can do the job better. You don’t see any of the top clay shooters using a side-by-side and we all aspire to be as good a shot as we can be. Side-by-sides will get hot when shooting a lot of clays, especially simulated game or corporate flushes; so will an over-and-under but you have a bigger fore-end to help prevent you burning your hand.

Narrow it down