A lifetime of hunting pheasants has led the author to shotguns he favors for this purpose, and others he can live without.

By Clair Rees

When I first started hunting, my friends and I had no concept of "pheasant guns." Barely teenagers, our firearm choices were dictated by financial circumstances. We relied on our inexpensive 12-gauge single-shots to hunt anything with wings - ducks, geese (hopefully, but seldom successfully), crows, pheasants, sage hens, chukar and the occasional desert quail. We were too macho to shoot smaller-gauge guns, and used full chokes for their long-range reach.
 
While our break-top single-shots were economical, they had three serious flaws: 1) My Model 37 Winchester weighed barely 6 pounds. Firing the 11/4-ounce high-brass "Express" loads was a punishing experience that became progressively more painful as the day wore on. 2) Knowing I had only one shot available made me concentrate so hard, I almost always missed. 3) Their full-choked barrels practically guaranteed missing when pheasants flushed at your feet.
 
I eventually bought a 12-gauge Ithaca Model 37 "Featherlight" pump. It wore a 28-inch modified-choke barrel, making it a pretty fair all-around scattergun. The modified choke was more forgiving than the tight patterns my old single-shot threw. More importantly, having fast follow-up shots on tap allowed me to relax and begin dropping birds I once missed.
 
As my hunting budget grew, I bought a 24-inch improved-cylinder choke barrel for my Ithaca pump (those were the days before interchangeable choke tubes became standard equipment). The wider choke brought improved success. I finally had an honest "do-everything" shotgun.
 

The field-grade 20-gauge Weatherby Orion is one of the author's top choices for pheasant hunting.

The following year, my good friend Del Leach showed up on the pheasant season opener carrying a fancy 20-gauge double.
 
"What kind of gun is that?" I asked. "Where did you get it?"
 
"It's made in Italy by a company called Beretta," he said. "My dad bought it used from a newspaper ad and then gave it to me. Wanna try it?"
 
It was the first time I'd heard the Beretta name, but that shotgun looked awfully nice. When Del handed it to me, I couldn't believe how responsive it felt in my hands. The gun was delightfully light, easy to carry and came to my shoulder with effortless ease. Twenty minutes later, a rooster flushed just in front of us. There wasn't time to be distracted by the broad sighting plane. I just threw the gun up and fired. The bird died in a puff of feathers.
  
I was instantly hooked! While I once thought my 12-gauge Ithaca and its pair of barrels constituted the nee plus ultra of pheasant guns, the little twin-tubed 20 was lighter, better balanced and handled like a thoroughbred. It was like going to a dance and discovering someone else had brought a prettier girl.
   

When the author hit a shooting slump, switching to this Holosighted Remington 11-87 autoloader proved to be the cure.

When I grudgingly handed the gun back to Del, I knew I had to have one. The classy Italian double was beyond my reach, but I saved my money and bought the most affordable side-by-side 20 I could find. The Model 311 Stevens wasn't fancy, but it carried light and came to the shoulder quickly. With its 26-inch barrels and the lack of a reciprocating action, the little side-by-side was far more compact than my long-barreled 12-gauge pump.
    
What's more, the gun's twin triggers allowed me to choose instantly between improved cylinder and modified-choke barrels. The little Stevens was downright deadly on close- or midrange ringnecks. It was my first purpose-bought pheasant gun, even though it also took its share of grouse. It wasn't as elegant as my friend's European double, but I was more than satisfied with how it performed.
 
I suddenly owned not just one, but three hunting shotguns! While my old single-shot now saw little use, my 12-gauge Ithaca spent lots of time in the duck and goose blind, and my 20-gauge side-by-side dropped grouse and ringnecks with satisfying regularity. I thought I'd bought my last shotgun.
 

Ruger's Red Label 28 is an American-made stackbarrel that is produced to true 28-gauge scale throughout.

An avid fan of hunting and firearm magazines, I discovered a few glowing accounts of how great it was to hunt Chinese cacklebirds with real sporting shotguns. After reading about super-fast-handling 28-gauge scatterguns, my 20-gauge Stevens suddenly felt slow and awkward in my hands. My Featherlight pump seemed downright ungainly.
 
You guessed it. Before long, I purchased a slim, trim Remington 11-48 autoloader in 28-gauge persuasion. Recognizing that 3/4- or 1-ounce 28-gauge shotshells simply couldn't throw very dense patterns, I bought a full-choked gas gun. At that time, Winchester made paper-hulled 1-ounce loads for 28-gauge aficionados. When these loads were finally discontinued, Winchester's John Falk offered to split the last case with me. I promptly took him up on it!
 
I killed a number of Idaho pheasants with that auto, and even used it on waterfowl with surprisingly good results. Those were the days before steel shot became the law of the land, and 7/8- or 1-ounce loads of 71/2s were deadly on decoyed ducks. I even brought a Canada honker down by shooting it in the head with the 28-gauge autoloader as the bird flared to land 20 yards away. While successful, this was a stunt I never repeated.
 
At that time, Idaho was my favorite ringneck hunting ground. While pheasants were relatively scarce in my home state of Utah, Idaho beet fields positively overflowed with the colorful birds.
 
Ken Turner and I made regular weekend trips across the Utah border to meet a pair of longtime friends. Because of the physical therapy practice they owned and operated, they had ready access (with signed permission slips to prove it) to many huge commercial farming operations in the southern part of the state. When they treated farm owners for various muscular ailments, they asked - and received - unlimited permission to hunt. While hard-eyed foremen turned other would-be hunters away, our magic pieces of paper were the "open sesame" that assured success.
  
The wind blows constantly in southern Idaho. I'm not talking gentle breezes. The conditions we typically hunted in would have Iowa homeowners hunting for shelter.
With a good Idaho tailwind, flushing roosters typically rocketed half the length of a football field before you were ready to shoot. This is why my Idaho buddies toted full-choked 12-gauge repeaters.
 
When I uncased a 28-gauge pump with a 26-inch skeet-choked barrel, it brought grins to my companions. "Carrying this little skeet-choked 28 means I need to shoot quickly, before the birds get out of range," I said. "To give me some outside chance of taking a limit, do you mind if I shoot out of turn?"
 
"Sure!" they chortled in unison. "Take every shot you can. Our 12s will handle your misses."
 
Long hours at the skeet field soon paid off. I was "on" every bird the instant it flushed, and anything I fired at under 30 yards was dead meat. The trick was shooting before the bird caught the wind in its wings. I had my three-rooster limit before 10 a.m. My Idaho friends went birdless until I shucked the last shell from my gun and, smiling happily, walked along to observe.
 
"You suckered us!" they complained at the end of the day. "Tomorrow all bets are off. You'll take your turn shooting like the rest of us."
 
I learned that 28-gauge guns can be deadly on ringnecks, but only if you don't stretch the range. I consider 30 yards the usual maximum, while birds beyond 35 are in the absolute "no shoot" zone.
  
Regardless of the gauge you're using, pattern density (at the target) is the key to good results. To determine how many of the pellets your shotgun throws are truly effective, shoot at a large (40 by 40 inches) piece of butcher paper taped to a cardboard box 40 yards away.

Then attach a felt-tipped marking pen to one end of a 15-inch piece of string, and attach a thumbtack to the other end. Place the thumbtack at the center of the pellet pattern, then draw a 30-inch circle. What happens inside that circle tells you how deadly your gun is with that particular load. The denser and more even the pattern, the better.
 
Before screw-in choke tubes were standard equipment, the only way to improve a scattergun's pattern was to experiment with different loads and pellet sizes. Sometimes a gun that threw loose, irregular patterns with a 11/4-ounce load of 6s produced nice, evenly distributed spreads with 11/8 ounces of 71/2s.
 
Today, you can also experiment by swapping choke tubes. Some shooters are surprised to learn their modified-choked 12 throws tight, full-choke patterns with certain ammunition. Patterning also shows where your gun is actually hitting.
 
A few years ago, I was hunting with a new Spanish-made double, and couldn't seem to connect with even easy, slow-flying cocks. I didn't have a patterning board handy, but firing at an empty water bottle placed on a hillside 40 paces away showed the pattern was centered a full 3 feet low! No wonder I wasn't hitting the birds!
 
Very few of my current shotguns are exclusively reserved for shooting pheasants. One exception to this rule is a 12-gauge Remington 870 slide gun sporting a stubby 21-inch tube with an improved-cylinder choke. While I normally prefer longer 26- or 28-inch barrels, few guns handle quicker than this short-coupled pump. When birds hold tight, then flush close underfoot, this is the gun I often choose.
 
Late in the season, when roosters sprint 50 or 60 yards before springing into the air with a derisive cackle, I prefer 12-gauge guns with modified chokes. I'll feed them 11/4-ounce (or even short magnum) loads of copper-plated 6s in place of the 71/2-size shot I use earlier in the year. I own several 12-gauge pumps and autoloaders well suited for this kind of duty. The Browning Cynergy I tried last year made another excellent choice.
 
When birds are flushing close, instead of wildly at extreme range, I may turn to one of the handful of light, compact, twin-tubed 20s in my safe.
 
The first over-under I fell in love with was an SKB 20-gauge with fixed improved-cylinder and modified chokes. I don't know how many roosters this gun has downed, but the number is considerable. Another long-time favorite is a 20-gauge Weatherby Orion with interchangeable choke tubes. These fast-handling stackbarrels share crossbolt barrel selectors handily located in the trigger itself.
  
Another pheasant-hunting favorite is a vintage Ruger Red Label 20 old enough to have fixed chokes. If I decide to tote a 28, it's likely to be the delightfully scaled-down version of this same gun (but with interchangeable choke tubes).
    
I'm fond of twin-tubed bird guns for a couple of different reason. First, side-by-side or stackbarreled doubles are shorter, lighter and handier than their magazine-fed counterparts. They balance better in the hands, and come to the shoulder far faster.
 
Too, these guns offer an instant choice between two different choke constrictions. The usual "improved cylinder-modified" sequence works great 90 percent of the time. But for passing or incoming shots, firing the modified barrel first will put more birds in the bag.
   
Finally, I like double-barreled guns (both side-by-sides and over/unders) because I can carry them fully loaded with the action open. While I walk through the fields, I carry the gun with the receiver in my right hand. My thumb holds the shells in place. The gun can't accidentally fire, even if I stumble and fall. When a bird gets up, I snap the action closed as I bring the gun up. There's no (or at least, very little) lost time.
 
Yes, there are such things as "pheasant guns." Fortunately, most of these shotguns work equally well to hunt a variety of flying game. This can't be said for specialized "anti-aircraft" magnums designed to bring down high-flying geese, or tight-choked turkey guns wearing rifle sights.
 
The perfect pheasant gun? I'm still trying to decide.

Clair Rees
GunHunter Magazine - November 2006