Dear Freddie,
IN YOUR recent letter you ask for some of the history of shooting and I am happy to oblige. Probably simplest to cover the development of the shotgun and how low-land shooting evolved, addressing grouse and wildfowl in due course. The earliest form of shotguns developed from military firearms in the middle 16th century. These enormously heavy, unwieldy matchlocks with 6ft barrels, muzzle loaded with powder and ‘hailshot’, were fired from a forked shooting stick at birds feeding on the ground. Although practically