The best-selling shotgun brands of the year

The Game Shooting Census 2022, carried out by GunsOnPegs and Lycetts, in collaboration with BASC, Countryside Alliance and GWCT, asks participants for information on everything from their preferred headwear when out shooting to where they shoot and how much they spend. 

Although we try to keep the core questions consistent from year to year, we also drop and add questions as we see fit, as different talking points and issues rise and fall in the consciousness of the shooting community. One such new question we were interested in this year was to discover whether the increasing requirement to have a gun that is steel-shot ready was encouraging game shots to buy new shotguns. 

Did you buy a new shotgun in the last 12 months?

Sometimes when we put a question in the Census we reckon we have a pretty good idea of what the answers will be. This was not one of those times. Nevertheless, I found myself mildly surprised when the data revealed that one in five game shots bought a shotgun in the last 12 months. I don’t know about you, but to me, that number seems quite high, especially given the supply chain issues that have plagued the gun trade over the last few years.

21% of people who completed the Game Shooting Census
bought a new shotgun in the past 12 months

According to the Census, 73% of people have no need to make any changes to their equipment, whether that be having their gun sleeved, getting the chokes adjusted or buying a gun, a figure which has not changed at all since last year. 

This is a bit of a puzzler - are people buying guns to prepare for steel, or is that one in five stat quite normal? My instinct is that people don’t buy a gun every five years: more like every 10. Perhaps I am wrong. Given that historically at least, many people will shoot with the same gun for most of their lives, I suspect that I am not… 

Counter to this argument is the fact that people who currently shoot most often with a side-by-side - the group you would expect to be most likely to need to change their gun - are less likely to have bought a new gun in the last year.

New or used shotguns?

One way that we may be able to get a feel for the motivations that people had for buying a new gun in the last year is to look at whether they were opting for new or second-hand shotguns. The former may suggest that the motivation is future-proofing, given that nearly all new guns on the market are steel proofed, whereas the latter may suggest the opposite. 

The results reveal a slight preference for buying new guns over used ones, but not a huge difference. 

Side-by-side vs over and under

The proportion of game shots that use a side-by-side shotgun has remained fairly steady over the last few years at around 30%. However, given the requirement for heavier loads when it comes to using steel, and the challenges of using steel in older, potentially more fragile guns, there is a question over whether some side-by-side users will bite the bullet and switch to an over and under. 

There does seem to be some evidence for that, since only 17% of those who bought a new gun purchased a side by side. 72% opted for an over and under, with the remainder opting for a single shots, pump action shotgun or a semi-automatic.

What shotgun brands did people buy?

Each year we ask what brand of gun people use most often for their game shooting, and the results don’t change all that much from year to year. Italian shotguns dominate, with Beretta, Perazzi, Rizzini and Caesar Guerini all taking top ten spots. We should, therefore, expect that this will be reflected in the guns people have bought in the last twelve months. 

If anything, Italian shotguns dominate even more than usual; the four brands mentioned above make it into the top ten. What I found intriguing was the apparent popularity of Turkish guns. Yildiz and ATA are both in the top ten most popular shotgun brands of the year, and Kofs and Hatsan also putting in a good showing. 

Most popular countries

I spoke to Richard Ryan, General Manager at Raytrade, who distribute Yildiz shotguns in the UK. He was pleased by the results, but not all that surprised. “We took Yildiz on in 2019 and it has grown exponentially since then,” he told me. “They are high quality guns at a very competitive price.”

Why are Turkish guns so popular?

Turkish guns have seen rapid growth in the UK, especially now that people have overcome their initial scepticism. Richard added: “When they first arrived in the UK, there was a lot of apprehension from people about buying Turkish guns, but Yildiz has been in the UK for 17 years and people have seen how reliable they are. It takes people a long time to get used to something in our world!”

I was interested to know who it is that is buying these guns. “The people buying Yildiz are often on their second or third gun," said Richard. "They know a bit more about guns and have the confidence not to need the reassurance of a big-brand name."

The Yildiz over and under is built on a shallow Boss-style action (the same as a Perazzi), with fantastic wood, but the cheaper cost of labour in Turkey and favourable exchange rates means that they hit that sweetspot in terms of price between £1,300 and £2,000. "OK, so a Yildiz isn’t finished in quite the same way as a Perazzi, but you can have three Yildiz Pros for the price of a Perazzi. Turkey is the new Italy!” Richard commented.

He also thinks that there’s been a shift in what people are looking for in their guns in recent years. “People aren’t buying stuff for sentimental reasons, they’re just after something that works.”

It will be fascinating to see how these numbers change in the years to come, and whether Richard's prediction that Turkish guns will continue to flourish comes to pass.