I am what you would call a traditionalist when it comes to my firearms. I am not in the AR style rifles and I prefer wood stocks over any other. Of course my hunting rifles have black synthetic stocks on them to maximize their efficiency. The synthetic stock will not collect moisture and swell like wood so it keeps the rifle more accurate. I will upgrade or modernize a part of a gun if I think it is a useful upgrade and not to just do it.
My turkey gun is the queen of my safe. She gets the most attention and I really think hard about making a change on it before I will. Will it give me an advantage in the field or is it just for looks? This is the type of thing I ask myself.
Recently I purchased a pistol grip stock for my dad's 11-87. He has polio in his left arm which basically keeps him from having but maybe 5% use of it. It has never slowed him down and he has worked all his life. He could raise a shotgun with the one arm and fire it, pretty good a sporting clays. My dad is turning 68 his next birthday and as age goes up so does some of life's aliments. He has gotten arthritis pretty bad in his good hand and it was making it difficult for him to get his grip on the traditional stock to hold the weight of the gun up. I purchased the pistol grip and put it on for him and it is much easier for him to lift the gun.
After we got it on there I liked it a good bit and started the process of considering one for my gun. On the 3rd Saturday of the season I saw a tom strutting for a hen in a field. I worked my way to them and got within a 100 yards. The hen walks away from the tom to go nest, game on. I wait until she is gone a minute or two and then yelp and cluck. He spins around and struts to me. He walks 100 yards and stops three steps from being right down my gun barrel in range and stands straight up looking. I cannot move without getting busted so I hold the gun and wait. He stands there for 5 freaking minutes. In this time my hand starts hurting from holding the stock and I start to wobble. Finally he steps down the barrel and I pull the trigger, not way it was a squeeze, and as soon as the gun went off I knew I had missed. DANG IT! This bird was at the perfect range, not to close but in full capacity of my gun's range. He was standing straight up and still. PERFECT SITUATION! Well after I missed with the first shot I figured he was not running fast enough so I through a second one at him to speed him up and get him out of sight.
Some misses do not bother me as much as others, when an unseen object blows the pattern I am unhappy but I am ok, but a situation when it is purely my fault I get livid. I almost chunked the gun across the field. I through a thing or two, and then took my ball and went home.
Called my wife to calm down and have someone pity me. Told her I she needed to buy me a new shotgun, but she said from what it sounds like the shooter needs replacing and not the gun. STRAIGHT TO THE HEART!
Eventually I got over it and scrubbed the gun down to wipe the miss away. Then I started thinking. What if I would have had pistol grip on the gun? My hand would not have got a tired with the grip and I may not have wobbled, no excuse I SHOULD NOT have missed!
Then I did something I never thought I would do. I guess you can figure what I bought after the season. That is right, my traditional looking turkey gun now sports a pistol grip. Going to get it dipped to match the gun and hunt with it next year to see if it helps. So far I like it, the feel and all, it gives me a shorter LOP which helps when I am against the tree cause I use to have trouble reaching the forearm and now I can comfortably grab it and fire. Only thing I do not like is to totally clean the gun you have the pull the trigger assembly and to do this you have to loosen the stock, but I only do a deep cleaning like that at the end of the season or if I get caught in some heavy rain so it is not a huge deal. Will keep you up to date.
