Soldier arms

Charles Smith-Jones admires the rugged capability of the Mossberg 590 Persuader, a model favoured by the US military

- Charles Smith-Jones

This month’s Blast from the Past features a shotgun that is somewhat unusual and most likely unattractive to the traditional field or clay-shooting buyer. It probably sits more comfortably within a US genre aimed at the military, law enforcement and home defence, or perhaps the general-purpose ‘homestead’ gun that could be called upon to harvest a turkey, buck or cottontail for the table.

On this side of the Atlantic it may appear more at home in the Practical Shooting discipline, a growing sport in which a shooter tackles sets of targets in a simulated combat situation against the clock and moving between different shooting positions. The targets, some reactive, are set at varying ranges and differ in size, shape, material and position. Though dynamic, exciting and increasingly popular, it is admittedly not to everyone’s taste.

Range