A couple of months later found me high on a ridge along the borderline separating Chelan and Okanogan counties; an area loaded with what turned out to be remarkably stupid blue grouse. They don’t call these big hooters “fool hens” for nothing.
I had tossed the cased 20-gauge behind my truck seat next to the Beretta and my ’06 rifle. This was opening weekend of the deer season and it was new country, so I spent most of the afternoon cruising the Forest Service roads looking for a camping spot. Pulling off to follow an old beater road a short distance, out ahead of me appeared this rather hefty grouse.
Here’s how dumb these birds can be. Instead of taking flight, this goober kept trotting down the dusty track while I got out of the truck, pulled out the 20-gauge, stuck in a couple of factory No. 6s and started following him. Here, I said to myself, is dinner!
By the time this bonehead figured out something was amiss it was too late. One shot later and he was field dressed and bagged inside of the cooler, and I went about my business.
The Roaring 20
Workman fell into a remarkable bit of good fortune when he acquired this 20-gauge Stoeger double gun with dual triggers.
Bill was the semi-retired publisher of an outdoor publication where I used to be senior editor before moving on to take a similar position at the Second Amendment Foundation, but I still wrote a column on guns and hunting for him.
They used to have a remarkable program called “Sell and Earn,” through which subscribers could actually earn firearms, fishing gear, camping equipment and so forth by selling subscriptions to their hunting and fishing buddies. To do this, the publication would accept products in lieu of cash from advertisers. Great idea and it worked phenomenally well.
Many years ago, one of these product deals brought in several 20-gauge Stoeger Uplander shotguns with fixed chokes and double triggers. Bill had some difficulty with side-by-side doubles, but I’d been hunting with a 12-gauge Beretta S/S for years. It was the first firearm I ever bought at retail, a very slightly used specimen with scrollwork on the receiver, deeply blued 28-inch barrels with sparkling bores, a checkered straight grip stock and fixed full and modified chokes. It is a bird-busting gem, with double triggers, which happen to be at the heart of this tale.
Every few months I would stop to visit with Bill, and on one particular occasion, we sat in his office while he talked of his disappointment about one of these guns he had personally taken ownership of, but with which he didn’t have much luck hitting anything.
So, when he said he was literally going to junk the gun, I jokingly told him I’d take it off of his hands. Turned out it was one of the best deals I ever made.
Bill was an experienced waterfowl shooter and he was pretty good at it. But he traditionally used a semi-auto or pump with a single vent rib barrel and with interchangeable chokes and a single trigger. On the other hand, my experience with a double-gun and dual triggers gave me one up on him and right away it occurred to me he simply couldn’t transition to a gun with a different setup.
So, my departure found me in ownership of another used shotgun and a box of pretty crummy reloaded shotgun shells he’d been given by some acquaintance. I went to the range, fired one round and put the rest in a box where it still gathered dust for several years until it went away. On the way home from the range, I stopped at a local gun shop and bought four boxes of factory No. 6s. The problem wasn’t the gun, but the shooter and most definitely the ammunition.
Leap ahead about 30 minutes. I happened to be passing by the same old beater side road when lo and behold I spotted some movement, pulled to a stop and bailed out of the truck a second time. Bird number two was wandering along virtually on the same course as its unfortunate predecessor. The thought occurred to me they were probably related because one shot later, I had enough grouse for two dinners.
Stoeger shotguns may not carry five-figure price tags, but they get the job done. My gun has a stained, nondescript hardwood stock and forearm, but it is a grouse killer extraordinaire. Instead of rusting in some trash bin, it has accounted for a fair number of blue (dusky or sooty) grouse, as I hunt the high ridges where these large fowl live.
That winter, as I recall, I pulled the recoil pad and replaced it with one from Kick-Eze. I’ve never noticed recoil shooting high-base 2 ¾-inch Federal or Remington No. 6 shells.
By the following September, I’d grown rather fond of that 20-gauge. I still took the Beretta along, but on the season opener, the 12-gauge never left its case. Working through some brush in a hunting spot I call “Blue Heaven” for its bird abundance, the Stoeger struck again…and again!
As it turns out, I found the 20-gauge smoothbore is just a plain lot of fun; double so because of the way it came into my possession.
A couple of years went by and I bought an over-and-under Franchi Instinct 20-gauge with a full set of choke tubes. This had apparently been a test gun, used by somebody on an African bird hunt I was later told. I initially arranged to have the gun shipped for a field test with the possibility of buying it. The gun arrived, still with powder residue in both barrels, but I spent about an hour cleaning it up and never had a bit of trouble. Satisfied this break-action shotgun was a keeper, I sent a check to Franchi.
The O/U shotgun is a bird buster in its own right. Anybody who thinks a 20-gauge isn’t enough gun must have a Rambo complex. The 20 is plenty, and my score on birds proves it.
If there is a moral to this story, it would be to never pass up a good deal, especially when it drops into your lap. Just keep your mouth shut, strike the bargain and resist the urge to grin until you’re out of eyesight.
