Old, injured embrace 28-gauge shotgun

Last week, I wrote about the 28-gauge shotgun and its potential benefits, especially for new shooters just getting started in the shooting sports. Unfortunately, space limitations prevented me from including a brief discussion of the gun's benefit for more mature shooters, so I want to address that as part of today's column.

It's no secret that our bodies change and our strength wanes as we get older, and often the injuries we sustained in our youth come back to haunt us as adults. In either case, shooting a firearm can sometimes become a difficult proposition and some older shooters think they no longer can pursue their shooting interests. However, with its low recoil and light weight, the 28-gauge can enable an older shooter, or a shooter experiencing difficulties associated with an injury, to keep shooting.

George Woford, a professional shooter and spokesperson for Akkar Sporting Arms, suffered a shoulder injury that required surgery and could have ended his shooting career.

"I don't handle the 12-gauge recoil," Woford said. "But I've actually started a 28-gauge trap league in the town that I live in. All of us are old guys, but we're shooting and having a good time. Many of them had quit shooting. They didn't shoot anymore because they couldn't enjoy it. That's what we have done with the 28-gauge."

After reading last week's column on this shooting platform, a few readers shared some thoughts.

Assessing the gun's value as an introductory firearm, Bob Donald wrote: "Great advice about the 28-gauge shotgun. I have been shooting skeet for over 50 years and have seen many women at our gun club never return because their husband or boyfriend started them on the 12-gauge."

Robert Gunny found Woford's evaluation of the .410 as a "professional cartridge" to be overstated and offered this story to prove his point:

"I learned to shoot a real gun when I was 10 or so. I learned with a .22 bolt-action single shot. ... I learned to take everything into factor. Wind, arc, everything to make good on. I could hit a cottontail on the fly. My next gun was a .410. It was a bolt action Mossberg & Sons. I made my best shot ever with it.

"Several years later I was asked if I would like to go hunting with a friend of mine. ... Dr. Parker said, 'You're going to use that .410?' He offered me a .20 gauge, and I declined. ... I ended up shooting the most quail and a couple of cottontails to boot. You don't have to be a professional to hit something with a .410."

■ STATE WILDLIFE COMMISSION -- The Nevada State Board of Wildlife Commissioners will discuss the big game season dates Friday and Saturday in Room 260 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, 3150 Paradise Road. Meeting times are 9:30 a.m. Friday and 8:30 a.m. Saturday.

Also on the agenda are proposed changes to hunt unit boundaries and the method for awarding reservations at the Overton Wildlife Management Area. Also, the board will evaluate proposed regulations pertaining to the plugging of bighorn sheep horns, attendance at a mandatory bighorn sheep indoctrination course and the possession of certain optics while hunting bighorn sheep.

Freelance writer Doug Nielsen is a conservation educator for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. His "In the Outdoors" column, published Thursday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NDOW. Any opinions he states in his column are his own. He can be reached at intheoutdoorslv@gmail.com.