I know this is a highly subjective topic (and there are probably many different opinions on it), but I thought I would ask to see what people think to see if there is some sort of a consensus. The question is regarding shooting planes. Specifically, are they worth the (relatively) high cost to have a dedicated plane for shooting. I'm relatively inexperienced when it comes to hand tool woodworking and have been using my #62 LN for shooting. It has worked ok for me so far, but since I also use this plane for general use (flattening, jointing shorter boards, etc), I always have to resharpen and fiddle with it to get it setup for shooting. Because of this, I sometimes "cheat" and rely on my miter saw for squaring up end grain. I know this is not optimal and want to do it the right way. I'm pretty certain I want a dedicated shooting plane, but the question I have at this point is whether or not the so called "shooting" planes perform substantially better than say a #5 1/2 or #6 that are dedicated to shooting. If I were to purchase a proper shooting plane, I would be looking at LV and LN, probably leaning towards the LV just because of the price difference. Thoughts?