Thanks Ploughman, I will have to agree somewhat with the conspicuous consumption theory that some have expressed here though. Compared to not that long ago we have all become much more attuned to the upper end of the scale due to the advertising and marketing forces we are bombarded with. The rise of sporting clays has also contributed to that as has the demise of small game& bird hunting as most of us knew it in our youth. Back then it was small farms and public land hunting and most went afield in jeans or pretty much work clothes. Today small game hunting is mostly dead and the bird hunting has moved to preserve hunting and the image is of some nattily attired country gentleman with a o/u or SxS jauntily carried over his shoulder by the barrels. Actually I am amazed that in little more than a generation we have gone to where few of the folks I see can actually operate a pump shotgun with any speed.
