“inertia-operated”

The Stoeger is a secret among die-hard waterfowlers. It has all the key features sought by hunters, but is half the cost of its competition.

The Affinity is this author’s definition of a bird gun.

The features include a kinematic action that is inertia operated, unlike your papa's recoil-operated A5.

Gun people are happy to jump all over the poor novice who calls his new handgun's magazine a “clip”, but should they?

The new Weatherby Element is the company's first inertia-operated semi-auto shotgun, and it comes with looks and a price bird hunters will love.

In 2012, after Benelli’s patent on its inertia action expired, Browning seized opportunity with a new-aged Auto-5, simply called the A5. Today the A5 line includes Mossy Oak bedecked guns and the shoot-all shown above, the new 31/2-inch Stalker, a semi-auto that looks and feels much like the old but that outperforms it in every way.

The Franchi Intensity, in many ways, delivers on its name. It capitalizes on some of the industry’s most respected technologies to reliably harness the most powerful shotshell payloads, and it does so in a slim, attractive package that betrays its middle-of-the-road price point. Hard to argue with any scattergun that offers both versatility and value.

Weatherby has been in the shotgun game for a longtime, but it changed its approach last winter when it rolled out the new Element, an inertia-operated semi-auto designed with upland hunters across the nation in mind. For 2016 the folks in Paso Robles have plans to put their new shotgun in the hands of even more scattergun aficionados, with the impending introduction of the Element Synthetic and Element Waterfowler.

There are a variety of waterfowl shotguns available today that are plenty good, but it's hard to describe any as "perfect." Just what would be required to earn such a superlative? We investigate.