16ga.com ~ View topic

Member Joined: 30 Nov 2011 Posts: 1695 Location: Minnesota

Can it be? If I only spoke Italian. An Italian version of a 16 ga club.?? Just another reason to love Italy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPjfRbjoYuA

That's brilliant, looks like a good spot I would love to hunt there sometime thanks for posting this , all the best WJ.

Joined: 12 Sep 2010 Posts: 1973 Location: Maine

Yeah, pretty much. A couple years ago, when some of us were trying to suss out a source of 16 ga shells after Cabelas dropped their Herters shells (made by Cheddite and loaded in Italy), and also when people were looking for how to get the Gaep roll crimpers, I came across something akin to the 16ga society but in Italy and written in Italian. You might recall that the people making the Herters' shells were hopeful and looking for someone to take up importing their product to the US after Cabelas dropped their line. IDK whether anyone ever took them up on it.

As best I an figure from the video, this particular hunt was also an ad for the shells (thus the several views of the guy showing off the empties) and some sort of celebration of a 70th anniversary, possibly of the shell-maker or possibly their relationship with the hunting outfit. I don't speak Italian but, having lived in NJ for too long, have some acquaintance with the rudiments of the language.

A couple more things.
1. That hunter's breakfast looks pretty darn good. But washing down the prosciutto and cheese with red wine is not my idea of how to start a hunt. Give me some Italian coffee, please.
2. I don't think much favorable of the gun-handling habits of these hunters. Early in the video there are some scenes where their muzzles and their dogs are uncomfortably close. The girl, especially, has a tendency to walk up on a point with hammers back AND finger on trigger. I don't care that her muzzles are up. A vine, root or twig can change that in a hurry. There's plenty of time to get your hammers back once you've walked up on the point and even more time to get you finger on the trigger.
3. There is no way I'd hunt with that girl. If you watch the pheasant shot by her and the guy wearing glasses, about 17:00 on the video, there is absolutely NO WAY she should have taken that shot. Setting aside that the line of her shot was maybe 2 or 3 feet to the side of the man's head, he definitely was in the sound cone of her shot and close enough for it to hurt. Later there was a pheasant that flushed straight at the cameraman then turned away. She was to the cameraman's left and shot past him at the bird.

Joined: 12 Sep 2010 Posts: 1973 Location: Maine

Oops. Double post.

Noticed the same as you Dave not too many broken open guns , safety is everything in the field you cant be careful enough, but enjoyed seeing the video sure it was a few minutes of escapism from all that is going on in the world , hope your keeping well Dave , just keeping my head down here , WJ.

Joined: 12 Sep 2010 Posts: 1973 Location: Maine

Agree, WJ. I'd love to hunt in Italy, France or Germany but I definitely would want to do it with safe companions. I'm not enamored of the idea of sitting in a European jail waiting to prove my innocence where there's video of something they might decide after the fact was unsafe, nor of the idea of getting pegged by a local who DGAS about safety (or might have given safety a cursory nod before imbibing).

Member Joined: 27 Jun 2012 Posts: 1113

The most noticeable thing to me other than the drinking and gun handling, was the dogs didn't seem to mark the birds down very well, and a lot of time was wasted hunting dead. The cover was fairly thick in places, but I'm used to more of a race to the bird after the shot, especially if I have two or more dogs on the ground.

Gentlemen,

Great stuff!

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

Member Joined: 31 Aug 2005 Posts: 1256 Location: Nebraska

Looked like they were having a good time, fortunate not to know how wrong they're doing things. Has probably been like that for 150 years.

In Germany I was looking at a Beretta O/U and the salesman told me he didn't think much of Italian hunters. Said they'd go around shooting "singbirds" and anything else that moved. That sort of activity is usually done by young men who don't know any better, I don't think it's a national sort of view on hunting, but having no first-hand knowledge of what goes on in Italy just left him to his opinion which is what I hope it simply was.

Joined: 14 Apr 2020 Posts: 144 Location: Boise,Idaho

I would like to hunt that area! But, I agree some questionable gun handling with guns pointed to dogs rear ends and not pointed up. Blaze must not be in style there. Looks like they could use a good flusher and retreiver.

Bob

Guest

The girl is cute. Smile

Leather slings on most of the guns, including new A5--must be in Europe somewhere. Can't understand a word they are saying either .. . . . . .

Joined: 12 Sep 2010 Posts: 1973 Location: Maine