Category: Gratuitous Gun Pics

As I grow older, I find myself torn between holding onto what has always worked for me, yet often having said experiential wisdom undermined by pesky things such as facts.

Take shotguns.

As Loyal Readers all know, I prefer side-by-side shotguns to over-and-under shotguns, illustrated by my own maxim:  “Shotgun barrels should be side by side like a man and his dog, and not over and under like a man and his mistress.”  (Yes, I coined that phrase.)

Actually, it’s bullshit.  While I yield to no man for my love of fine side-by-side shotguns, the plain fact of the matter is that when it comes to sustained usage, the old SxS just doesn’t cut it.  No matter how costly the gun, or how hardy, they all break after thousands of rounds;  the much-maligned over-and-unders, much less so.  (Ask yourself why Olympic shotgunners like Kim Rhode have always used over-and-unders — in fact, nobody in serious shotgunning competition uses a side-by-side, and that’s for good reasons.)

Which brings me to today’s gun under discussion, the shotgun which is pretty much the international gold standard for the ordinary shotgunner:  the Beretta 686 Silver Pigeon.

 

From a pricing perspective, it’s always difficult to pin the 686 down, because the addition of different Roman numerals makes the price shoot up faster than the options list on a Porsche 911.  The one in the picture is the bottom-of-the-range “Silver Pigeon I” in 20ga, and it typically retails for around $2,000.  This, by the way, is common in the shotgun business:  adding a couple inches to the barrel can double the price, as can asking for superior wood for the stock.

The dirty little secret about the 686 is that it probably represents the best value for money of any O/U shotgun.  (Its closest rival, sales-wise, is the excellent Browning 725 Citori, which typically retails for nearly a grand more.)  I use as an example Mr. Free Market, who each year shoots thousands of rounds through his 686 (he actually shot out his earlier 686 to the point where it would have cost more to repair than just buying a new one), and despite my constant needling, he steadfastly refuses to change to another brand.  (This post was in fact triggered by me saying to someone that we should learn from others’ mistakes or equally, by the example of others, and in the matter of O/U shotguns, I therefore bow to his experience.  If you wish to do the same, feel free to browse here.)

Where I will not change, however, is in the matter of barrel length.  I’ve always though that the longer the barrel, the better.  A 29″ or 30″ barrel will add many yards to the effective range of a shotgun over a 26″ barrel, and the increased range (and efficacy) far outweighs the weight and handling disadvantages.  Save short barrels for the self-defense pump-actions;  field guns should have longer barrels.

This doesn’t mean I’m going to run out and buy an over-and-under shotgun, by the way.  I don’t shoot clays often enough to warrant a change over to an O/U, so I’ll stick to my side-by-side companion.  Yes, I’m preaching form over function, which should surprise precisely nobody.

But if I was looking to buy an O/U, the 686 would get a very close look.

Thinking idly about guns, as I occasionally do [eyecross], I was pondering the current issue of gun / ammo shortages, and while everyone has ideas about handguns, there is always the thought that at some point, one may be asked to shoot something (animal, anarchist, zombie, take your pick) at a distance exceeding comfortable pistol range — say, more than 25 yards.  (Your standard pistol choice of a 1911 .45 ACP or plastic-fantastic Europellet delivery vehicle should be quite adequate at less than 25 yards distance to target, but further out from that, you’re not going to have, shall we say, consistent accuracy grouping to make you confident of taking such a shot.)

And I know:  everyone has their Mattel ARs and what have you, but if you don’t already have one and a sufficient supply of ammo, you’re going to be SOL at your local Merchant Of Death establishment.  And that goes for a lot of guns, yea even unto unfashionable choices like the AK-47.

What I’m saying is that you need a cheap long gun — any gun, really — that can live in your car’s trunk that can be relied upon to work satisfactorily, and for which there is currently ammo available.  And that, for anyone who’s looked at the issue recently, is no longer a given.

Unless, of course, one considers the venerable Russian Mosin-Nagant family of bolt-action rifles, all chambered for the very unfashionable 7.62x54mmR.  Mosins are the Rolls-Royce of bolt-action rifles, in that everything you’ve ever heard about them is true:  you need a hammer to work the bolt, their accuracy is not universally admired, for instance;  but they also work regardless of condition or ill-treatment, and if you do eventually run out of ammo, they make an excellent club or, if you have a bayonet, a wonderful spear, as seen in this old pic of Your Humble Narrator:

As for the Mosin’s boolet, the 7.62x54mmR (rimmed):

…there are millions of German Wehrmacht- and SS soldiers who might attest to its efficacy, but sadly they didn’t survive the Ostfront, so ’nuff said on that score.

Now I see that Century Arms are selling 91/30 rifles for under $400 at the moment — Century Arms guns are very often assembled from surplus parts bins, but that doesn’t matter when it comes to Mosins because there’s almost no such thing as a “collector grade” 91/30 (although the one I’m holding in the picture actually was), so not having matching serial numbers is no big deal.

The one knock on the 91/30 is its length, which can make it quite unwieldy.  Here’s a pic of the so-called “ex-Dragoon” (carbine-length) compared to a “standard” 91/30 (more on that topic here):

But what makes the Mosins so versatile is that because they were Commie rifles, all the Eastern Bloc countries made variants thereof behind the Iron Curtain, most were carbine-length, and many cannot hold a bayonet, if that’s of interest to you.  The M44 carbine does, an integral side-folder (which I also once owned, prior to the Brazos River Canoeing Tragedy):

…and those of Hungarian, Polish and Romanian origin, to name but the more popular ones, are freely available.

Now, as for the ammo:  the 7.62 Russki ammo is not as cheap as it once was, running between 50 cents and a dollar a pop (I know, pick up your jaws), but from what I was able to gather from just a cursory glance, almost all the ammo suppliers have some of the stuff in stock (e.g. here), which is not the case for most of the popular cartridges like 7.62 NATO, 7.62×39 Soviet and 5.56 NATO.  Just remember that the mil-surp Russki ammo is highly corrosive, and you need to clean your guns assiduously very soon after firing — before leaving the range, even.  The modern commercial ammo is much better in that regard, albeit more expensive.  Me, I hate the old corrosive shit like poison and pay the “premium” on non-corrosive ammo cheerfully;  but that’s all a matter of choice.  Note too that many ranges do not allow steel-cased (as opposed to brass) ammo, so make your choices carefully.  From a personal perspective, I’ve always had great results from Wolf, Tula, Prvi Partizan and Brown Bear brands, so be my guest.

As I’ve said many times before in my writings on the topic, I think the M44 is the ultimate “trunk / truck gun”, as it can lie neglected in the back for years, and still be guaranteed to work as promised if needed.  Mine certainly did, whether bouncing around in my F-150 or the Suburban.  In that role, if it’s stolen or (ahem) confiscated, it’s no great loss — and as an added bonus, the Gestapo in places like New York or California will not treat it the same as they would for example, an AK or AR-15.

So there you have it:  relatively cheap, reliable guns which can do the necessary at non-pistol distances, shooting inexpensive, effective (and available!) ammunition.

Every home should have one.

As everyone knows, I love Old Gunny Stuff — and a good-looking pre-WWII hunting rifle in a proven chambering pretty much checks all my boxes.  Here’s a Savage 99 in .250-3000 (.250 Savage) at Collectors:

As I’ve also said before, I am not a fan of the 99 when it’s chambered in a larger caliber like .303 Savage, .308 Win and so on, because of the stiff recoil.  But a nice quarter-incher like the .250 Savage?  And in a handy little carbine?  (And did I also say before how much I love the Savage’s slick lever action and box magazine which can hold pointy spitzer boolets, unlike the WinMar lever guns with their tube mags?)

The age of rifles doesn’t bother me at all, provided that they’ve been reasonably well-looked after:  I’ve owned many pre-WWII rifles, and honestly, I’ve loved pretty much every single one of them:  Swiss K-11, Swedish 1896 Mausers, SMLE and Enfield No.4s, Mosin-Nagants, gawd knows how many Mauser 98s, and so on.  The one rifle of this genre that got away, by the way, also gives me the deepest regret at its loss:  a pre-WWI Winchester 94 in .32 Win Special (as I recall, made in 1910), which I bought from a dear friend who a year later demanded I sell it back to him because he was missing it too much.  Now I miss that rifle, still.  Here’s one, also from Collectors.

Were it not for their respective price tags — which reflect how many people love these rifles as much as I do — I’d buy them both in a heartbeat.

So yeah:  old rifles and old cartridges don’t frighten me, and they shouldn’t frighten anyone.  These fine old ladies are flat-out wonderful and gorgeous, their cartridges are just as effective as any modern cartridge, and everyone should own at least one.

Touch history, folks, while you still can.  You can thank me later.

For some time now, I’ve been hankering after a six-shooter — for no reason other than the usual — and I’ve gotta say, this offering is pretty tasty:

You can get a decent .45 LC revolver for half that, but nowhere near as pretty.