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ctafoya

Bird gun

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17 hours ago, Delw said:

No but they kill ducks just as good.

I have a 20 gauge 3" mag  miruku charles Daily from way back when was shooting ducks,geese, dove and phesants with it 2 days after my Father bought it in in yokuska Japan in the very early 70's.. Rice patty ducks are huge, as well as the doves the doves back in Japan are bigger than a pigeon here. Killed quite a few Canadians in Washington state before they switched mandatory to steel shot.

I bought a Daly 20 ga. when I was managing a Penny's sporting goods dept. in 1970. It was a super gun, and then I made the mistake of trading it in 1975 for a Minolta motor drive camera body. I was in SW Colorado at the time and didn't think I'd have much use for a shotgun any more. It would be a few years before I realized it was the worse trade I ever made. So upon our return to Phx in 1980, I acquired a Browning Citori 20 ga. and used it for everything including Arizona's quail, ringnecks in S & N. Dakota, ducks & geese from a pit blind in S. illinois to turkey in Missouri, Florida and Alabama. In 2003, I sold it to finance my trip to Africa and have been 'shotgunless' since then.   

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The 60's to early 70's era shotguns were some of the best and smoothest ever made, ie winchester, browning, mirukus  remington and a few others.  then for some reason in the very late 70's -90s shot guns turned to subpar ie gritty, didnt function smooth and felt odd even the foreign ones. around 2000 beratta  started making sweet shotguns again the ruger red labels where some of the smoothest shotguns I felt in a long time when they 1st came out blew away the same year winchesters and browning.

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The later very late 70's/early 80's  citories werent near as good as the earlier ones. something happened around then that made all once good shotguns feel subpar. dont know if it was due to cutting corners / change in material or just people getting sloppy over time, or browning coming along. Kinda liek the same thing browning did with beliguim those early browning belgium brownings were sweet guns.

take a a citori from the early 70s made at that plant and a citori from later put side x side and you will notice a bit of a difference. especially in workmanship.

I visited that factory when I was in Japan, granted I was a snot nosed kid back then but I remember it very well.

 

heres some history on the miroku plant and browning. i didnt know that they made the lever 22 there for browning as well as a few others.

https://www.browning.com/news/articles/brief-history-browning-legendary-miroku-factory.html

 

 

 

 

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I'm kinda biased on shotguns, I was fortunate when I was growing up to be able to hang and shoot  with some of the best trap and skeet shooters in the world especially in the far east  asian conntries. Japan held some pretty highend shooting events back in the late 60's 70's with people from all over the world. not to mention some military members. heck everyone shot  skeet and trap back then it was kinda the only thing to do.

I started when I was 8 was shooting AAA against adults when I was 9, I shot and average of 4 days during the week then 2 competitions on sat and sunday mainly on the different bases around. Dad was a very good trapshooter I mainly stuck with skeet. I learned from some of the best the older guys in there 40-late 50's back then and still in the military, some japanese and other nationalities guys that would come on base as guests for shoots or the shoots we would goto off base.  On a big shoot they would fly some well known shooters from the states to participate. those guys were amazing and really cool and loved to help. There seminars "meetings" consisted of a  heck of alot of beer and instructions after the shoot and a occasional "Hey kid grab my "real" shotgun lets go out and I'll  show you how to shoot skeet.." shooting a "real"  shotgun was a reall treat for me. I used a 20 guage 1100 skeet gun I had won in a skeet tourny when I was 8. I was lucky enough to shoot some very high end trap and skeet guns in my younger years . one of those guys loaned me a older beat up 410 skeet gun for months and forbided me to shoot anything else for a few months. That helped aalot .

we even had guys on base that could fit a shotgun to you.  I wish I had some pictures of back then ( I am sure my mom does)

Theres was only  2 of us kids that were hardcore shooters. it was me and a girl about 3 years older than I and she usually kicked my butt. after her dad retired and went back to the states we heard she shot for Remington from some letters she and her parents sent us at the club.

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Delw said:

The later very late 70's/early 80's  citories werent near as good as the earlier ones. something happened around then that made all once good shotguns feel subpar. dont know if it was due to cutting corners / change in material or just people getting sloppy over time, or browning coming along. Kinda liek the same thing browning did with beliguim those early browning belgium brownings were sweet guns.

take a a citori from the early 70s made at that plant and a citori from later put side x side and you will notice a bit of a difference. especially in workmanship.

I don't recall when the change took place, but the very early Citoris were actually the Miroku design used for the Charles Daly but sold under the Browning name. At some point, they completely designed a Citori explicitly for Browning. So maybe that's the difference. 

Over the years, I've had a bunch of Browning rifles but only two shotguns -- the 20 ga. Citori and a 12 ga. BT -99. Another 'wish I hadn't traded' one was a Belgium-made Safari grade .270 FN High-Power.  In 80s. I had a .338 A-Bolt that I got specifically for a Canada grizzly hunt. I sold it to some idiot that used it in a stand off at his house with the Phoenix police.   

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