An Open-and-Shut Case

You’d think that opening and closing a side-by-side or over/under would be the simplest of procedures. You shoot the gun and then pass it to your loader. He handles all that complicated stuff for you. Nothing easier. But on the slight chance that you might not have a faithful cargador with you at all times, here are some thoughts.

Opening a gun seems pretty straightforward. You push over the opening lever, break open the gun, reload and close. Hard to screw up. But people do mess it up all the time.

It is always particularly painful to see some troglodyte shake open his gun. You probably have seen someone do it, too. He holds the gun in his right hand only, works the lever with his thumb, and then flicks his wrist to snap it open. It is a tribute to a modern gun that it can withstand any of this, much less a steady diet of it.

There are a number of correct and easy ways to open a gun. All of them involve using the left hand as well as the right. When I need to catch my hulls in the field (always) or when shooting clays (usually), I’ve found that this works for me: Rotate the gun so that it is parallel to the ground and the trigger guard faces your body. Trap the stock between your right bicep and side, making sure that the muzzles are pointed safely slightly downward. Hold the barrels with your left-hand fingers over the top of the rib. Don’t hold just by the forend, as some O/U forends can loosen that way. With your right-hand thumb, push the lever open and begin breaking the gun, moving your right-hand palm over the chambers to catch the ejecting empties. You experienced shooters no doubt know all about this and get a good laugh at the pointless disconnectable ejector feature on some new guns.

Proper closing of an O/U or side-by-side isn’t quite so clear cut. Obviously, only a total buffoon would snap his gun closed with one hand. It’s just inviting an accidental discharge, plus it’s really, really bad for the gun.

What isn’t so clear is whether to ease the opening lever closed by hand or permit it to snap back into place under its own spring pressure. The “ease it closed” school argues that their method spares parts wear and prolongs the life of the gun. The “let the spring close it naturally” school says that the lock was designed to work under consistent spring pressure and that feeding it over by hand might not fully seat the lock the same way every time, thus increasing parts wear. Both sides have their advocates.

Personally, I’m in the “close naturally” school, except when I’m handling someone else’s gun and want to make sure not to offend someone who is armed. 

Have you seen better (or worse) ways to open and close a gun? If so, I’d like to hear about them.

And that closes this. Boots off. Beer open.