A Gun a Week: Browning Citori XS, 28 gauge

Browning Citori XS, 28 Gauge.

If shooting skeet with an automatic shotgun like a Remington 1100 teaches you anything, it's that unless you bring your wife or your mom with you to the field, you're gonna have to pick your hulls up yourself. Whether you pick them up as you shoot them, which is frowned upon by the rest of the squad, or after you're done with the round, it's a pain in the back. They add up and they get scattered about and mixed up with your buddy's rather quickly. Yeah, it wasn't long before I decided I needed an "over and under" shotgun that lets you shoot your targets and then deposits the empties right into your hand.

The lever that opens the action so you can load or unload the shotgun.

On Citori over/under shotguns, after firing you push the lever on top to the left and the action "breaks" open on a hinge and the empty hulls are shot by spring-loaded ejectors out of the gun--and if you're smart and lazy--right into your hand. Some folks can eject the shells and catch them out of the air with one hand. I cannot. One of the reasons I don't play professional ball (of any kind) is that I can't catch. I just let them pop directly into my hand and then into my Walmart shooting pouch which I've had since 2001 or so. No bending over is involved.

Eject! If you're smart, you cup your hands over the flying hulls so you don't have to
bend over to pick them up. If you're good, you catch them mid-air in one hand! 

After taking a beating from Browning Citori 12 gauge over/unders, and dragging a hefty "tubed" Citori--a gun that lets one shoot sub gauges in his 12 gauge--around the skeet field, I figured I'd be better served if I just had a 28 gauge. Everybody already knows that 28 gauge shotguns are magic. Lithe and slender, they are easy to carry on the skeet field and while hunting though I ain't never hunted with mine and probably never will. It's too fancy!

The Citori line from Browning Arms Company was introduced in the '70s and was a cheaper to make version of the Browning Superposed which was the last firearm design drawn up by the man himself: John M Browning, genius. The Citoris are made in Japan instead of Belgium, like the old Superposeds were, and everyone poo-pooed on them because of that fact early on. I don't have a problem with that. In fact, but Japanese precision machining is right up there with the best, and these days, with CNC machining they're making guns that're tighter than Dick's hat band...which is good.

There's gold in the engraving and the trigger.

Admittedly, I wasn't actively looking or shopping for one when I saw the ad in the catalog from CDNN Investments but as soon as I saw a 28 gauge Citori XS for "BELOW COST!" I had to have it. Normally, the paying for relatively high-dollar shotgun like an XS would be the hard part. But luckily I had an old F-250 laying around that I sold to a former co-worker and with that wad of cash deposited in my checking account, I called CDNN while my debit card was burning my fingers. It was just meant to be. Shipped to the gunstore's FFL holder, my buddy, and I had it a week later.

If you've ever unboxed a new gun that you have bought sight unseen, for more money than you make in a week, you just haven't lived. Waiting for a child to pop out of your wife or significant other at the hospital is a close second to the anticipation you feel unwrapping a shotgun you've never laid eyes on. And, as with my kids by the way, I wasn't disappointed! It was lovely seeing the nicely-figured wood and the bright and shiny bluing that was all brand new. As a dumbass carpenter used to working for a living, brand new guns are few and far between, but this, this Miroku-made Browning XS was brand-spanking new and all mine!

The finest piece of wood on any shotgun I own. The one ding is from a clay
target shard. Yet another reason to wear safety glasses when shooting.

And if that weren't enough, the store where I'd had it shipped was run by my buddy who just so happened to have worked at Browning Service in Missouri as a budding, fresh-out-of-college gunsmith and did in fact, have a barrel set in .410 bore laying around the shop unused. Now, the Japanese company that the purists hate machine these things to tolerances only dreamed of by a bunch of Belgians and thankfully, the .410 barrel set snapped right onto the 28 gauge receiver with no fitting needed! One snap and I had a two barrel set! Two guns for the price of one.

A desperate search online to find a barrel set case was launched at the time.
The case too is a Browning of course.

At the time of all this gun buying and alteration, I was a professional skeet shooter, so this was exactly what I needed. Yeah, needed, to play the game in all four gauges. I never said I was any good at it, but I was a real professional! I wasn't the worst at it, but I wasn't anywhere near the best. Luckily the shooters are classed, like runners are by age, but on their ability. One of the most humiliating defeats was to a guy named Pittard. Pittard! I can't even say the name without spitting a little.

At his home club, after losing in the 28 gauge event to him the year before, I was killing him one summer's day. I was on my fourth box with only two misses, up on him by two targets. We were on station seven...the easiest, most Brett-friendly station from which to shoot skeet of them all. All I had to do was hit the next four at station seven and I was gonna beat Pittard at his own field! Pittard! The six-foot-six giant, braggart and hubris-filled oaf was about to be taken down by little ol' Brett. I had one job...and I choked. I missed two or three of the "low seven" targets and watched my dreams of victory sail away toward the boundary stake and waft into the grass where if finally broke no thanks to me, my stupid brain, and my Citiori XS.

A Buckmark where it belongs: On a Browning and not some hipster's car.

I remember falling to my knees crushed as my Shooting buddy Bill Carter behind me was saying, "Brett," in that head-shaking tone that only southerners can do. It wasn't long after that I gave up my professional skeet shooting status and became the casual shooter I know and love now. I never did test well. I did have a great day with my Citori once at The Rock when I ran a straight, that is 25 targets with no miss, against a dude with a Krieghoff K80 and pretty much whooped his ass. A K80 starting cost is around $10,000 and goes up to the-sky's-the-limit dollars, but I smoked his bacon with a dirty Japanese Citori XS, homemade two-barreled set in .410. It might've been the best day of my life. I shook hands with the guy and left with three more boxes I had intended to shoot still in my car--I know when to quit.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the 28 gauge is in my mind the perfect gauge to start out new shooters and I've taken more than a few folks out with this shotgun for their first run at the targets. It just makes sense. Sure, about a million people have started out with a .410 shotgun, but that shell only holds a half an ounce of shot. Sure, there's no recoil, but if new shooters keep missing, they may not ever want to come back out and try again. The more shot you throw at a target, the better your chances of hitting it. The 28 gauge flings three quarters of an ounce of shot and pushes back enough to let you know you're shooting a shotgun, but it will never hurt you. It's the Stay-Puff Marsh-Mellow Man of the skeet world.

I sound like a broken record, but when you want to take new shooters on the skeet field,
you can't go wrong with a soft-shooting 28. All smiles and no bruises!

I guess I could hunt pen-raised quail with it, as long as the sun is shining and there are guaranteed no briers underfoot. I hate to say it, but it's too pretty to risk. I got that 1100 in 28 for the hunting jobs. No, when you see me with this shotgun, I'll be dandied up on the skeet field where I can keep an eye on my gun and baby it. And if you want to go, buy you some 28 gauge, Remington STS shells and give me your empties when we're done! That's all I ask in return. Skeet you know takes about a minute to learn and a lifetime to master!

An American designed Browning XS was used at the Camp David skeet/trap field
 by non other than the president of this country. Though a 12 gauge, it's still a
beauty, still a Browning XS!