I've mostly hunted with 20's for the last 50 years, but have had a couple of 16's now for awhile; an old Savage Fox B and a 1916 production 1897 Winchester. When I was a kid roaming/hunting the river behind the house with my buddies down the road, they carried Model 12 16 ga. shotguns.
I've carried the Fox a little, mostly for nostalgia sake and to get rid of some of the old shells I have. One year I guided a turkey hunter on a spring hunt and carried the Fox loaded some old Winchester Mark 5 shells loaded with 1 1/8 oz. of #4's. I figured with the typical presumed MOD/FULL choke combo of these shotguns (this one had no choke designations stamped on it anywhere) and #4's, if I had an opportunity, the rig would be fine to 30-35 yds. As luck would have it the Toms were persistent that morning and the client got one right away, so I decided to call one in for myself. One made haste to my call and I whacked him at around 30 yds. Sometime later I was measuring the bores and muzzles on some of my shotguns to see how they were really choked. I grabbed the old Fox and measured it, expecting a .020 or so constriction in the left barrel and around .030 in the right. They were both right at .005, which is about skeet.
The '97 came to me with a whomper-jawed barrel, looking like it had either fallen a considerable distance or been run over by a vehicle. A few cycles of shooting it at a pattern board then wailing it over a tractor tire corrected the wayward point of impact, but it still looks pretty dreadful.
Gotta agree about the purple Federal hulls, they are pretty sweet looking!
Last edited by 35WhelenNut; 02/05/22.
