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a package from New England Custom Guns. Of course, I hustled over to the gunshop as fast as I could and tore into it. Inside was a shiny new 20 gauge AYA #2 Deluxe that the folks at NECG wanted me to wring out and report on. This was an especially fortuitous event for a lot of A reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I had been thinking of buying one. My illustrious predecessor, Michael McIntosh, had a 12 gauge AYA #2 that he Shotguns By Robert Matthews few months ago I got a call from my buddy Dan Adams at LA Armory saying that I had been sent AYA #2 Deluxe proved itself on fast-flying sand grouse and doves in the Namibian bush. The author's carried and used all over the world. His "main gun" was a lovely, best-quality John Wilkes that he adored and was loath to subject to the hardships of international travel, so the AYA often served as a "stand in' for the Wilkes when travel was required. In time, he became as fond of the AYA as he was of the Wilkes. McIntosh wrote that he had shot more than 100,000 shells through the gun with no apparent ill effect. Recently I came to the same place by the same route. Over a period of more than 50 years of "trading- up," I acquired a very nice Purdey 12 gauge with two sets of barrels. I had the shorter, 29-inch set bored out to improved cylinder and modified, but left the 30-inch barrels choked full and extra-full. There is very little in the way of shotgunning that I can't handle with this gun, and I have carried it around the world several times. A couple of incidents, however, have caused me to wonder about the wisdom of shipping my Purdey willy-nilly all over the globe. The first involved an airline that misplaced it for several days. Another involved the sight of my Americase sliding and bouncing end-over-end across a concrete runway. Thanks to my Americase, the Purdey inside suffered no harm, but it made a big impression on the somewhat "slow learner" that owned the case and its precious cargo. After the last incident, I began looking for an alternative to carry around on my travels to distant places. Yes, the Purdey is insured, but no amount of insurance could replace my treasured old friend. Since I am by my own admission a purist of the worst kind, I wanted to shoot a side-lock, side-by-side. It would have to be reliable, durable and nice looking in its own right. Most of all, it would have to have the swing and balance of a "London Best" or as close as possible within the constraints of a limited budget. Life is, after all, too short to bird-hunt with a clumsy gun! This presented me with something of a quandary. A used English gun with enough life left in it would certainly break my precarious post-recession bank. And as much as I like some of the Italian guns, the same would apply to them. Traditionally, the better specimens of Spanish guns have occupied a sort of "middle ground" in terms of refinement. By this, I mean that while they may not display the absolute perfection of an English or Italian gun with a hundred-grand price tag, many of them are still very, very good. And SPOR TIN G CL ASSICS 71