The receiver felt great in the hand and looked nice and trim. In fact, I would say it is just about the perfect size for a 20 gauge. But there is always some compromise with combo guns; in this case, it is a 20-gauge receiver with 28-gauge barrels. Still, the receiver is trim enough, and it's far from clunky for a 28 gauge. It's just not quite as dainty as I would like.

The Magnus really made a believer out of me on the range. I was a bit out of practice, but I only missed three birds in three rounds of skeet with the 20-gauge barrels attached. With the 28-gauge barrels, I shot a solid 23. As I expected after my empty-gun practice, the Magnus came to the shoulder easily and swung smoothly, though I did have to work a bit to keep it moving.

I didn't bother going to the patterning board because the Magnus seemed to hit perfectly for me with both sets of barrels. I attribute my few misses to lack of practice, but I flat-out smoked the majority of the birds I hit.

A few weeks later, I took the Magnus back out for a bit of sporting clays. Once again, I shot pretty well, shooting two birds under my regular 20-gauge average, and I came away impressed with the new gun. The Guerini performed admirably in the mechanical department, too, ejecting empties smartly and locking up smoothly with the solid feel of the proverbial bank vault. I was also impressed with the crisp, light trigger and grateful for its manual safety.

I'm not about to try and convince anyone that a $5,000 shotgun is cheap. But as a lover of fine shotguns, I have to say that Caesar Guerini's Magnus combo is a whole lot of gun for the money. Now, if I can just get the wife to wait a while to get those new blinds...