Customer Reviews

The Complete Guide to Wing Shooting: The Ultimate Handbook to a Specialized Sport

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

With the title of "The complete Guide to Wing Shooting: The Ultimate Handbook to a Specialized sport" the stage was set for greatness! I slogged through the book with great determination to find something that justified the title. The "Specialized Sport" I thought was about wing shooting unfortunately, it is acquiring riches. This thing reads like a conversation at a ball for royalty. The author has a lot of experience in shooting at preserves and $5000/day English style shooting for the uber rich. Lots of talk about Purdeys and other $100,000 guns. Lots of talk about how to handle your gun loaders (what to tip, why you should not shoot them, and how many to hire depending on the shoot). I thought the material would be about becoming a better shot while hunting not slaughtering as many bird as possible just for the glee in killing and making sure you don't have any physical exertion. The author wrote a book to a very narrow audience that I am sure would find rather droll. The book is very thin on usable tips for most people. I will say the jacket cover sold me the book.

Any hunter narrowing his focus to wing shooting simply must have THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO WING SHOOTING: THE ULTIMATE HANDBOOK TO A SPECIALIZED SPORT in hand: it provides hunters with a primer beginning with the fundamentals and moving to safety, etiquette, choosing autoloaders and considering barrels, and much more. Discussions with experts cover any pros and cons of equipment choice or methodology, while chapters pack in detail and even some color photos.

After reading here some of the earlier reviews of Alex Brant's work, I began to wonder if they had the same book I did.

While the author is an American, he has done the bulk of his shooting in the United Kingdom where, I assume, he resides presently. Indeed, he is a columnist for the UK magazine THE SHOOTING GAZETTE but has also penned articles for the American magazines THE SHOOTING SPORTSMAN and SPORTS AFIELD (where some of this book's material first appeared). Alex Brant is a widely varied sports shooter -- both with game and clays -- and has done so all over the world. Being as diverse in experience as he is, I am not surprised that I found his book to be thought provoking as well as informative. While I might not choose this book first off for a beginning shooter, I do think it offers something worthwhile for both intermediate and advanced shotgunners. Clearly, the author has a strong dedication to wing shooting and this comes through in his writing. I found the mid-chapters to be most worthwhile reading: Becoming a Better Shot; Shotguns and Gunfit; and The Truth About Chokes and Patterning. (Chapter Nine: The Last Word on Nontoxic Shot was also well done.)

What may have put off some of the earlier reviewers here on Amazon was when Brant described and gave advice

on British and overseas shooting sports -- especially the English institution of the driven pheasant shoot. That form of wing shooting is not very common here in the United States, so when some American readers came to chapter ten on How To Hit Tall Driven Game and Long Birds, the subject seemed, if you forgive the expression, foreign to them and perhaps elitist. I sincerely believe American shooters and hunters should become familiar with driven shooting techniques to make themselves better and more well rounded shots and hunters. (The opposite is also true, British and European shooters need to understand the methods of American walk up hunting more so they can better understand North American preferences, strategies, and gun & cartridge choices.)

Given all this, I think Alex Brant's book has something positive for everyone interested in better wing shooting whether they be European or American. His writing style is crisp, direct, and easy to follow and the book covers a lot of ground -- it is not just for hunters either, because chapter four on Clay Games and Shooting Method is the longest chapter and Brant is on solid ground. I think this book would make a useful addition to any shotgunner's library and don't be surprised if you find yourself referring to it more than once. For open minded readers who are willing to appreciate the difference here and there and are willing to broaden their minds, I recommend this book.

There is a lot of information in this book, but it is not that interesting to read. It may be best at fixing a shooting problem that you are having, rather than as a general interest book. The author has a tremendous amount of experience, shooting thousands of birds per year. I love hunting, but I wouldn't enjoy shooting that many birds every year.

This book is full of the author's war stories and anecdotes but does not live up to its title by any means. I did not find it particularly useful as you have to wade through these stories to extract the useful information. As an alternative, I recommend any of the Orvis guides as they are more practical and well-indexed.