Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/433799
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 4 5 I spoke with one of our readers a few days ago, and he expressed the commonly held opinion that all reviews of firearms are "bull." He even interjected that he had never seen a bad review in my column. I had to confess that some other gun reviews are BS. There have been times when I read another writer's glowing evaluation of a gun that I knew from my own testing was not quite up to snuff. It happens. The magazine business is very much advertiser-driven, which sometimes adds a modicum of pressure to give a report that is a bit optimistic regarding an advertiser's product. The bottom line is that if the manufacturer is not happy with the review, he may spend his advertising dollars with some other publication that is more appreciative of his wares. The same can be said of lodges, outfitters, clothing manufacturers, or any other company that has something to sell. The advertiser pays the bills. And it's true that I don't make a habit of writing bad reviews. How do I handle the problem of covering substandard products? Well, I start by restricting the stuff I test to products from reputable makers. I have little tolerance for shoddy I was really surprised to find out that Guerini had developed a new clays gun because they already have a slew of them—and they're all good. On the other hand, the guys at Guerini don't work that way, and it didn't keep them from backing up and taking a good hard look at their existing shotguns with an eye toward improvement. The company's current line is based on sound, proven designs that work quite well for their intended purposes, but clays guns take a terrible beating compared to field models, and Guerini decided to fundamentally redesign the traditional over-and-under. They set out with the lofty goal of producing a gun that would survive one million rounds. They began by building the new gun on a heavier, wider frame that provides larger bearing surfaces. Then they went to the heart of the firing system and created their new DPS trigger with redesigned hammer geometry and tighter tolerances than previous designs allowed. To complete the firing- system modifications, the hammers are coated with a new industrial chrome that not only Robert Matthews h o t g u n s S stuff and avoid it like the plague. Then I follow my Momma's dictum: If you can't say something good about somebody, don't say anything at all. I simply don't do a report and return the product to the maker. Often, I will suggest how the product can be improved, and offer to test it again if the manufacturer follows through with improvements. A ll of which leads us to the new Caesar Guerini Invictus sporting clays gun that I just received. Everybody who reads this column knows that I'm not much of an over-and-under man. Not much of a "sporting" shooter, either. Left to my own devices, I mostly shoot birds with side-by-sides. The other side of the coin is that I really like to get guns from Guerini, because I don't ever have to worry about the quality of their product. I don't have to worry about getting mindless, ill- considered doo-dads for testing either. Wes Lang and his crew spend their time and effort thinking through their shotguns and trying to improve what they offer—and I'm talking about real improvements, not sales gimmicks. All of the above applies to their new Invictus. And, if truth be told, The innovative design of Guerini's Invictus is geared toward durability. Caesar Guerini built the Invictus from the ground up with an eye toward shooting one million rounds.