SWEET SIXTEEN

Some of us are afflicted very early in our lives with a fascination with the “minor-bore” shotguns. Mine began in 1967 when Stathi (Leon) Sikiotis, the proprietor of Claredon Hairdressers in Springs on the East Rand (this was also the local gun store) imported two o/u 20-bore shotguns from Italy. Both were Berettas but on the one was engraved the name Sauer-Beretta and on the other Beretta Golden Snipe. I was absolutely fascinated by the petite yellow cartridges and the heft of those slim, magic wand-like barrels.

I was eleven at the time and was shooting with what my dad could afford for me – one of those ghastly bolt-action Mossberg .410s, the one with the plastic trigger-guard and poly-choke at the end of the barrel that ruined what balance the gun may have had to begin with. Our house was a 12-bore household and, as anything else was considered inferior, my mind was systematically poisoned against the supposed inferior hitting power of smaller bores. Heaven forbid “Damascus” or twist-steel barrels! The Sauer-Beretta 20-bore in question went to Stathi’s son,