First Shotgun...

[Foxyboy43]

Best value for a first gun will be an AyA no3 or Yeoman. Can be had for £200.

Fit is vital. Watch some videos on fit, but easiest way is using a mirror. With an empty gun, close your eyes then open and mount gun using the image of your shooting eye as the target. Your aiming eye should be in line with the rib with the bottom of your eye on the rib.

With a shotgun, gun fit is vital. If gun doesn’t fit you will struggle to hit much.

Fox cartridges - use a 36gram load of 4s and keep ranges to 25 yards. Plenty of foxes are shot with 28gram 6 shot though. On bigger game such as a fox a shotgun kills by overall energy transmission than just the pellets going through the vitals. A bit like hitting it hard with a sock filled with lead shot.

I love the analogy H! It conjured up some wonderful mental pictures for me. Was your grandfather a footpad in Victorian times perhaps?

 

[Heym SR20]

I love the analogy H! It conjured up some wonderful mental pictures for me. Was your grandfather a footpad in Victorian times perhaps?

Possibly greatgrandfathers - indeed have a book by one of them recounting his travels around the far east at the turn of 1800 to 1900's. He grumbled rather that the Thai authorities made him surrender his pistols when entering the country!! whereas everywhere else no issue for Gentelmen (or a foot pad) to carry a firearm.

Have a watch of this which I remembered - in Sweden as elsewhere shotguns are often used on deer etc.

 

[Foxyboy43]

Possibly greatgrandfathers - indeed have a book by one of them recounting his travels around the far east at the turn of 1800 to 1900's. He grumbled rather that the Thai authorities made him surrender his pistols when entering the country!! whereas everywhere else no issue for Gentelmen (or a foot pad) to carry a firearm.

Have a watch of this which I remembered - in Sweden as elsewhere shotguns are often used on deer etc.

Lovely family artefact.
I saw this video thank you but for whatever reason I don’t warm to shotguns for deer especially with no. 2/3 shot though obviously the swedes have found it effective. I just wonder what the kill to cartridge ratio is and how many go on with non-fatal but painful shot in them.

 

[Heym SR20]

Lovely family artefact.
I saw this video thank you but for whatever reason I don’t warm to shotguns for deer especially with no. 2/3 shot though obviously the swedes have found it effective. I just wonder what the kill to cartridge ratio is and how many go on with non-fatal but painful shot in them.

A lot of European's use shotguns on driven hunts as they generally very safer when you have a number of hunters in close proximity. As regards potential wounding - well this happens even if rifles are being used and its why all driven hunts will have well trained tracking dogs on hand to follow any wounded animals. And on driven hunts that I have been on, unlike a phaesant drive, guns are dotted throughout the woods and fields. And the beaters work in figure of 8 rather than in a line. Most deer and pigs when disturbed or when wounded don't run in a straight line, they tend to circle - hence this way of driving. And the beaters will usually carry guns for dispatching wounded animals and also for when the dogs bay an animal.


The mindset is very different to the UK - primary aim of a driven hunt is to get numbers down, and 60 or 70% of any cull will typically be done over only one or two hunts in the year - in the winter. Otherwise the woods are left undisturbed. And what tends to happen (or certainly in central Germany) is that all the various reviere's (hunting leases) combine efforts. So this week you have 30 guns and 20 beaters doing one riviere - and next week they will do another several miles away, but over the season the whole area is covered. There is generally an overall cull plan in place (agreed between the hunters and Forstmeister) and once cull plan is achieved then the hunts stop.

In the summer - it's the time for selective culling - especially of the older animals, and its here that the hunting happens on the woodland edge and out in the cropped fields. Part of the aim is to protect the crops from damage and to keep the animals in the woods where they belong.

I have used a 12 gauge a couple of times in anger on big game - once on an impala which dropped to the spot at a range of 20 yards, and secondly when following up a wounded lion - because that was all that was available. And the shotgun was weapon of choice for protecting your home in the troubled times in Africa - a single Buckshot cartridge is equivalent to several pistol bullets and they make one hell of a noise when shot indoors. No 6 shot also works well - very good for snakes and does n't cause quite as damage to decoration.

On big game the secret with a shotgun is to be close - as in 20 to 25 yards close. With big animals intent on damaging your own hide - make it single digit - you want powder burns and in effect you are sending a solid 1 1/8 oz ball that dumps all its energy straight into the target. Depending on the load, most 12 bore shotguns deliver over 3,000 ft/lbs of energy at the muzzle. By contrast most stalking rifles have a muzzle energy of 2,500 to 3,000 ft/lbs - but of course carry this a long way down range, unlike a shotgun.

But I digress.

 

[Foxyboy43]

A lot of European's use shotguns on driven hunts as they generally very safer when you have a number of hunters in close proximity. As regards potential wounding - well this happens even if rifles are being used and its why all driven hunts will have well trained tracking dogs on hand to follow any wounded animals. And on driven hunts that I have been on, unlike a phaesant drive, guns are dotted throughout the woods and fields. And the beaters work in figure of 8 rather than in a line. Most deer and pigs when disturbed or when wounded don't run in a straight line, they tend to circle - hence this way of driving. And the beaters will usually carry guns for dispatching wounded animals and also for when the dogs bay an animal.


The mindset is very different to the UK - primary aim of a driven hunt is to get numbers down, and 60 or 70% of any cull will typically be done over only one or two hunts in the year - in the winter. Otherwise the woods are left undisturbed. And what tends to happen (or certainly in central Germany) is that all the various reviere's (hunting leases) combine efforts. So this week you have 30 guns and 20 beaters doing one riviere - and next week they will do another several miles away, but over the season the whole area is covered. There is generally an overall cull plan in place (agreed between the hunters and Forstmeister) and once cull plan is achieved then the hunts stop.

In the summer - it's the time for selective culling - especially of the older animals, and its here that the hunting happens on the woodland edge and out in the cropped fields. Part of the aim is to protect the crops from damage and to keep the animals in the woods where they belong.

I have used a 12 gauge a couple of times in anger on big game - once on an impala which dropped to the spot at a range of 20 yards, and secondly when following up a wounded lion - because that was all that was available. And the shotgun was weapon of choice for protecting your home in the troubled times in Africa - a single Buckshot cartridge is equivalent to several pistol bullets and they make one hell of a noise when shot indoors. No 6 shot also works well - very good for snakes and does n't cause quite as damage to decoration.

On big game the secret with a shotgun is to be close - as in 20 to 25 yards close. With big animals intent on damaging your own hide - make it single digit - you want powder burns and in effect you are sending a solid 1 1/8 oz ball that dumps all its energy straight into the target. Depending on the load, most 12 bore shotguns deliver over 3,000 ft/lbs of energy at the muzzle. By contrast most stalking rifles have a muzzle energy of 2,500 to 3,000 ft/lbs - but of course carry this a long way down range, unlike a shotgun.

But I digress.

Cheers H. Always good to hear from the proverbial. I have shot sanglier in the Languedoc as a guest of a very rural community and it really was a great experience - so very different from what is my norm e.g. using radio collared dogs and gps tracking - quite something but an absolute honour to be a small part of. I came back with a raging headache on two counts - the amount of post-shoot drink and trying to converse with a bunch of the best guys ever - none of whom spoke english.The weapon of choice was either 300 win mag or double barrel loaded with SSG and LG but that was for boar of course rather than deer.

 

[Heym SR20]

Cheers H. Always good to hear from the proverbial. I have shot sanglier in the Languedoc as a guest of a very rural community and it really was a great experience - so very different from what is my norm e.g. using radio collared dogs and gps tracking - quite something but an absolute honour to be a small part of. I came back with a raging headache on two counts - the amount of post-shoot drink and trying to converse with a bunch of the best guys ever - none of whom spoke english.The weapon of choice was either 300 win mag or double barrel loaded with SSG and LG but that was for boar of course rather than deer.

Yup - I can never drink schnapps again. After shooting my first pig in Germany we had a big Braii. I had talen a couple of Scottish friends with me. I can’t eat or drink any thing made from wheat or barley, so rather than a bottle of beer I was given a bottle of good German red wine. We had multiple courses of various different game animals all served very good kraut salad. Because I cant eat wraps, rolls etc, each piece was served between thinly sliced pork steaks - they make excellent tacos. And all was washed down by red wine - cos being an honorary Scot in Germany you have to keep pace. The highlight for me was desert. The Germans all had flambayed pancakes. I was served flambayed caramalysed baby pig loin and very good it was too. By this stage i had a couple of good bottles or red.

Then out came the schnapps - it was horrible so more red required to take the taste away. By about three the Scottish team were still warming up, the Germans had disappeared. Being an honorary scot I had just kept our side up.

Following morning we went to local cafe. One smell of scrambled eggs .......,.,,

 

[Jagare]

Lovely family artefact.
I saw this video thank you but for whatever reason I don’t warm to shotguns for deer especially with no. 2/3 shot though obviously the swedes have found it effective. I just wonder what the kill to cartridge ratio is and how many go on with non-fatal but painful shot in them.

Thousands of roe are shot with shotguns in Scandinavia every year. The vid explains how the shot affects the roes nervous system. Very few get away wounded. We have a law that says if your hunting an animal you must have or have access too within two hours to a dog trained to track that type of animal you are hunting. This is taken very seriously and the penalties can be sever for breaking the rules.
Its a very exciting way to hunt roe. We have dogs to hunt everything in Sweden.

 

[Foxyboy43]

Thousands of roe are shot with shotguns in Scandinavia every year. The vid explains how the shot affects the roes nervous system. Very few get away wounded. We have a law that says if your hunting an animal you must have or have access too within two hours to a dog trained to track that type of animal you are hunting. This is taken very seriously and the penalties can be sever for breaking the rules.
Its a very exciting way to hunt roe. We have dogs to hunt everything in Sweden.

Thank you J and what a great stipulation! I can’t help but wonder how the need for a tracker dog within 2hrs would go down in the UK?

 

[wabbit warren]

for shooting any vermin or pest i use my trusty Hatsan escort semi auto it cycles any cartridge as long as its not long brass
for game i use either my linclon premier gold duluxe or my Caesar Guerini tempio light all in 12 bore so no worries about mixing up cartridges
i only shot one fox last year on our shoot with a shotgun and it took two barrels to kill it outright
32g 6,s sipe

​

 

[London Jaeger]

You might want to consider Boss & Co.

They recently annouced the new '1812' Edition which is rather charming. It was the result of over four years development and is their first ever side-lever over-and-under gun with a single trigger. It'll look very sharpe over your arm aswell, with a their classic rose and scroll pattern. It is really modern meets classic in the best possible way. As their marketing team like to say ' Guided by tradition, not bound by it'!

Home - Boss & Co.

London's oldest gunmaker, home to handcrafted guns of the finest quality, including the world's first ambidextrous side-lever shotgun family.

bossguns.com

In for a penny and out for a pound, so I would get a pair if I was you. Always nice to have the consecutive serial numbers.

 

[stubear]

- a beginners 12G shotgun (I’ve been told to avoid synthetic stocks)
- choke selection
- cartridge selection
Any advice appreciated!

- Anything that fits you well within your budget. If you can get something with 3" chambers which is steel/magnum proofed as well thats a plus so you can shoot heavier loads.
- I think 1/2 and 1/4 or 1/2 and 3/4 should cover you for just about everything.
- For fox I'd go over 32g in weight with a heavy shot.