Why a Pump Gun Still Has a Place in a Duck Blind

Over-unders and side-by-sides will always have a place on an upland hunt. They’re light, trim, and easier to carry than a semi or a pump. In a duck blind, though, the semiauto is king. Semis consistently win “Best Ever” tests for waterfowl guns. They’re soft shooting, easy to point and shoot, and becoming more affordable. But there are a few reasons why you might want to hang onto your pump-action for ducks, even if you’ve just bought a fancy new semi-auto.

Duck hunting is dirty. Take a fall into a mud hole with your brand new semi-auto, and it doesn’t matter how much Cerakote and stainless steel it has on it. That gun will probably need to be taken apart before continuing your hunt, and it’s not going to be easy.

Sure, if you’re proficient at breaking down a shotgun, you can get pretty quick at field stripping a semi-auto. Pump-action shotguns are much simpler and easier to maintain. You can break a Mossberg 500 down to the studs with nothing more than your greasy fingers. The parts are big, chunky, and look like they were designed in Minecraft. This makes them difficult to lose, which is good news if you need to service your gun in the marsh or just get the water out of it after a rainy day.

Keeping with the theme that a marsh is one of the worst places to bring a shotgun, or any mechanical device for that matter, a pump gun will put up with some pretty harsh stuff before it finally breaks. Duck and goose guns also get shot a lot, and the loads they use are also heavy compared to shells for upland birds and small game. Personally, I’ve seen a bolt lug on high-dollar semi-auto shear in half, and without naming any brand names, I’ll just say you’d be surprised at which one it was.

You will have few reliability problems with a pump shotgun because a lot of them were made for harsh conditions. Since WWI, soldiers have been taking pump guns into absolute hell, from muddy trenches to dense jungles. Guns like the Ithaca Model 37, Remington Model 870, and Mossberg Model 500 have all been tested on battlefields that would make the worst duck swamp seem like a putting green.

Pump-action shotguns are also impervious to extreme cold weather. The pump itself gives you leverage to break open the shotgun’s action. While your buddies are fiddling with their broken semi-autos or locked-up double guns, you’ll be shooting ducks with a pump.

I almost always keep a backup gun in a duck boat, and usually, that gun is a pump-action. Instead of trading your pump gun in for a semi, I’d suggest holding onto it for that purpose exactly.

They’re great guns to lend to a new hunter, and they just might save your hunt should something happen to your primary waterfowl gun. Pump guns are also practically given away on the used market. I’ve paid as little as $150 for a Remington 870. And because they can put up with so much abuse, there’s usually little wrong with them.

Back in the market hunting days, hunters who used pump guns shot more ducks than those armed with giant punt guns. This might be an indication of how ineffective a punt gun was, but those old hunters shot ducks by the barrel with pump-actions. With a little practice, they work extremely well.

The late R. Lee Ermy once tested a pump vs. semi-auto shotgun on his hit show “Mail Call.” He was actually able to hit more targets in a row faster with the pump gun, because cycling the action of the gun forced him to reset his aim every time.

I feel I get into a kind of rhythm with a pump-action, and with a semi-auto, I feel more as though I’m fighting the gun to get back on target. Pump-action shotguns are also less picky with certain loads, and you can seamlessly take them from target loads at the clay range to full-blown magnums on the marsh without adjusting gas systems or experiencing feeding issues.

For a new duck hunter, a pump-action is probably the best option. There will be more recoil, but the pump guns are easier to understand and safer to operate. Break-action guns are great for safety, as you can open the barrels and get a quick visual on whether your gun is loaded or not. But I’ve found that loading and unloading break-action in the tight quarters of a duck blind can give you more than a few opportunities to muzzle your fellow hunters or a dog running the in the decoys. Semi-autos are safe once you know how to use them, but inexperienced hunters might find it hard to tell when these guns are loaded or unloaded.

If I’m handing a new hunter a gun, it’s usually a pump. With pump-actions, you can load and unload with the muzzle in a safe direction. They’re easy to visually and physically inspect should you want to see if the gun is loaded. If you need to make the gun completely safe, it’s easy to do so by just breaking open the action. The pumping action will also make a hunter more aware of every shot, rather than just blasting away with a semi-auto. If you’re looking for a first shotgun for a youngster or a safe backup gun for a buddy, stick with a pump.