Earlier this year my hunting partner, whom I have jsut recently converted to upland hunting (he's a waterfowler and deer hunter) told me that he wanted to get a nice upland gun for this fall. I went to work, sending him links to ads for guns for sale etc... Finally he had to qualify the statement "nice upland gun" with the add-on "that will not prevent me from sending either of my children to university!". So I scaled back a bit, but it was hard to find much in the 800-1000 dollar range. In nova scotia we have a little newspaper called the Bargain Hunter Press. Folks who are not into the internet sell stuff on there, and because of the smaller market I often find better prices in there than on-line. There was a simple ad in there - "12 gauge OU. Fabarm for Ruko. 1100$". Well we did all the research we could, and disovered that Fabarm are actually very nice guns, very popular in Europe, but not so much in North America. Price point was about 2000-2500$ on a new one today, and we learned from the seller that this one was 10 years old. We went to look at it and it was beautiful. Great wood, nice but not overdone engraving. Locked up tight. Barely used. The boys dickered about the price a bit while I fondled the gun. They could not agree on a price so we left and went for a cup of coffee. All I said to my buddy was: "you tell me when you've made up your mind for sure if you're not going to buy it, because I will". He flipped open his cell phone on the spot and offered the guy 900$ cash in hand right away, which I thought was a very good deal for him, although I think the seller was hoping for 1000$. Anyways, it was a month before we could get out to shoot. We took my little string-operated clay thrower out on the road down under the hydroline. Rob took a few straight-away shots, then some crossing shots from each side, and walked back to the truck wiht a HUGE grin on his face. Handed me the gun and I walked out to the shooting stand. When the clay flew I locked my vision on it and just let the gun flow up to my cheek and fire. Dusted. With each clay I moved slower and slower, letting it get waaaay out there before calmly letting the gun do the work. I simply could not miss. The best way that I could describe the gun as that it was solid, but fluid, if you know what I mean. It just came up and shot where I was looking and broke the clay. I can't wait to see him take his first rooster with it this fall - I feel like that moment will be the final piece of the puzzle in his conversion to an all-out pheasant hunting addict. I will welcome the company! lol!
-Croc
