Your Benelli is Ready!

Al Hansen

Well-known member
When my shotgun fell of my Kawasaki on Monday morning on my way to my duck hunting spot, little did I know what would be transpiring for the rest of the week. Not until I pulled on the drake widgeon did I realize that my shotgun barrel looked more like a boomerang. Thank goodness that I didn’t pull the trigger.
I was horrified because in my way of thinking (archaic) I thought it was going to cost me $200 or so for a new barrel. That is allot of firewood to cut and sell. I was driving about 78mph on I-25 trying to get to Albuquerque as quickly as possible. Upon arriving at Charlie’s Sporting Goods store, where I originally bought the Nova, I went straight to the gunsmith shop. The gunsmith took one look at it and said, “There is no way I can fix this, why don’t you go up front and have them order you a new barrel.” That is when I found out that a new barrel was going to cost me $385.00. Now I know what shell shocked means!
The lady that I was dealing with looked at me and said, “We have another gunsmith who is on vacation and will be back on January 4th. I have a hunch that he might be able to do something. I’ll give you a call when he looks at it and tells me what is going on.”
I just remember how long it took to get back home and how down in the dumps I was. I was now thinking that I might have to buy another gun and I didn’t want to give up my baby (Nova). You have no idea what this gun has seen in its seven duck hunting seasons.
On Thursday morning, New Year’s Eve day, my phone rings while I was making a delivery of firewood. “Mr. Hansen, this is Charlie’s Sporting Goods and I just wanted you to know that you can come and pick up your Benelli. It looks like a new gun."
I called my wife, who is in Green Bay, WI, visiting children and grandkids and told her of the wonderful news.
The gunsmith straightened my barrel and told me that if it wasn’t quite on yet, he will “tweak” it a little one way or the other. There was one mighty big smile on my face and it even got bigger when he told me that the total charges for repairing my shotgun was $39.95! Yup, I did the Toyota leap when I got outside and was heading for my truck.
Al

This is what my barrel looked like on Monday morning after falling off of my four-wheeler.

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At 6:43AM, our duck season officially opened for the day. I only had to wait for three minutes when a lone drake gadwall set his wings and came into my spread. I put three of the slickest holes in the sky that you would ever want to see. My gut reaction was, “OH NO” the barrel is still bent! Heck, here I was worrying about nothing at all. I had a great day and it sure is good to have my baby back.
Here are a few pics from this morning's hunt.

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Chili standing outside the Taj Mahal!

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I know that I am one very lucky man.
 
Having had my Benelli spend Christmas in a river I know what you mean about getting a gun back! Sure is great when everything works out. I'm very happy for you.

Gene
 
Great news on the gun and the hunt. That hunting spot of yours looks to be a very nice spot. I love hunting smaller streams but none of them look like it does down in your part of the world.

Can you drive up to the stream or do you need to baot there? See many other hunters?

Thanks for sharing.

Mark W
 
Mark, the ranch road is so sandy that my two wheel drive pick up will get stuck on it, so I have to park my truck and ride my Kawasaki to the locked gate (3 mi.) From there I need to take my four-wheeler one more mile to the ditch. The only time it has water in it is when the Rio Grande has allot of water. Since this area is lower than the Rio it fills in during the winter months. Back in 1955 the Army Corps of Engineers dug this channel to help the ranchers drain their land after the Rio Grande would flood in the springtime.
I am very fortunate that I have this small ranch (only 10 square miles) to hunt on. In fact, the rancher told me that I am the only one with a key besides his family.
To answer another question, I have hunted 53 days so far this year and one time had a hunter that was a half mile down stream from me while I was on the Rio Grande. I usally will NOT hunt the weekends just because I prefer to be by myself. If I hear a gun five miles away, sometimes that seems too close. Yes, I am spoiled.
Most of the time, I will build my blinds in September and October on dry land in hopes that there will be water during duck season. Sometimes there is and sometimes there is none. I have only lived here 13 years and every year has been different. For example, this past early teal season, I hunted a small pond where this was the first year that it ever had water in it. One of the rainstorms came in and the arroyos ran and thus it had some water. On dry years I end up hunting ducks on rancher's stock tanks. Drive around from water hole to water hole jump shooting.
Al
 
Al, glad to hear the good new about your barrel!

I wonder how they do that...did you get a chance to see it or maybe he described the procedure? I am imagining some slow but brute force to get it going in the right direction and reasonably "straight" but it seems like it would require some fine tuning to straighten out the bore axis...maybe some sort of bore insert forced down the barrel to make the final alignment?
 
And thus is hunting in a Desert.....water today, gone tomorrow......


I thought from the photos that it was a channel that had been manipulated for water management of some type. Yes you are lucky, It has become very difficult around northern Utah to obtain permission in the last 10 years. Most often the answer is flat NO!! Hell NO!!! and I am pissed you even asked so HELL NO!!..... Rather frustrating at times when you were trying to do the ethical thing and ask etc.

Many of the better waterfowl areas that are not public are under gun club control. You buy a membership with yearly fees. This start at about 1500-2500 for the initial fee and 250-750 yearly, the better the hunting the higher the fees. So far I have not done that and instead elect to travel a bit to hunt unless I hunt right out my back door.
 
I didn't know a thing like that could be straightened. Lets see a picture of the repair job.
 
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