Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns 16 ga popularity

Agreed. I remember the first time someone in our group bought a Krieghoff. Everyone flipped out on paying that kind of money for a shotgun when a Browning could be had for 1800 (at the time) or a Peerless for 1000 if you had to have an O/U

See it now with the money for an Echols or something.

Americans won't spend 20k on a K80, but will put 20k into a side by side UTV like it's nothing. You'll shoot the equivalent of 90k miles worth of traveling on that K80 and get a lot more of your purchase price back when it comes time to sell vs the UTV with those miles on it....

Well I have 2 and want more. A friend only hunted upland game with one (A Winchester M21) until he gained too much weight in his face and didn't shoot it well anymore. Now he uses adjustable stocked 12ga. I am prett sure if he found a 16ga that fit him he would go back to it.

Just sold a K80 I bought used...shot at least 30 thousand rounds out of it and lost 1k when I sold it after 3 years of use. The cost per day was less than some spend on a daily Starbucks or Big Mack.

As far as the UTV, you left out the truck and trailer to pull and carry it...

Ive got quite a few older shotguns. 870s , model 12s, 311s , A5s ,BPS , 1100s , 50s in gauges from 10 -410 . With the exception of the rare trip to eastern Va for deer i use a 16 gauge 90% of the time. In my humble opinion a 16 gauge model 12 is just about shotgun perfection. Last few years with the ammo shortage 16s and 28s were about the only thing on the shelves consistently.

Still have my dad’s 12 but it had a box magazine. Strangely to me anyway, it’s very light for gauge. Cheap American guns usually weighed and handled like a fence pole.

Speaking of shot shells, Scheels the other day were fully stocked with 28’s, 20’s, 16’s…but no 12’s!

Battue, nothing there I disagree with. Totally different cultures in about every way. Here, not every landowner is wealthy or has available disposable income, and with public lands, even the peasants can hunt to a degree. Most of them want a tool..

There, land- owners are aristocratic or oligarchs and can order a high quality gun for thousands of £, €, or francs, and have many of them. There’s a real market.

And thankfully, we get a few coming this way.

I have an old Remington model 11 on 16 gauge that I love. It has somewhat taken over as my small game gun. I opened the full choke to modified to make it a bit more versatile. It held it’s own in the dove field this year and has proven to be a great squirrel gun the last couple years. I can see myself using it more and more, as long as I can find ammo for it.

It may come as a surprise, but probably the most used shotgun by the masses in Britain are the various Browning O/U's. There will always be those who for whatever reason can afford...or appreciate, and sacrifice for....higher end wares. And the average Brit thinks we are rich in comparison....and rightfully so. Much the same with the Italians, however it seems they are willing to sacrifice more for good gear.

Here, most are willing to sacrifice for a 50-70K truck.....and the UTV....

I have 3. An 870 with all three barrels, an Ithaca 37 with a Polychoke, and a M12 with a Polychoke. One for each grandson.
Btw, I have plenty of shells.

The Citori / Mirokus are another nice 16 gauge. The 12 gauge Citoris are well-made but on the heavy side for a field gun, though I had one I used as a target gun and shot 20,000 rounds or so at sporting clays and really liked it for that. The couple of 16 gauge Citoris I've owned were an ounce or so less than 7 pounds, well balanced and really nice shotguns. Another example of where the gauge and gun design / balance go together well.

Yeah but shotguns are all the masses of Brits own. Rifles being more controlled and most don't own large numbers like is common here. I have never owned a high dollar shotgun myself and probably never will but have and do own quite few.

In the last 25 years or so we have seen a resurgence of the 16 gauge. As late as the mid-90s, I remember several specific guns on dealers racks that were discounted because they were 16s. Today we see premiums on them. That said, I think it’s growth/demand has leveled off, but doubt it will go down. It’s also a bit of a cult gauge, with lots of hunters like me who roll their own.

I love the gauge, have three that I use a lot: a 1969 Browning Sweet Sixteen, a 1959 Winchester Model 12, and a Browning Citori Superlight (steel receiver). And I pine for the Piotti 16 gauge that I sold several years ago!

They may not own as many, but most often go for high end rifles and air guns...Same with scopes.

For verification, I receive a Brit sporting mag and shoot with a couple Brits who are here...There is more going on with Brits in the field than most realize....and it isn't just the wealthy that participate.

I used to talk at length to a Brit on another forum who was a professional game manager for many years. He said comparatively few Brits own rifles and that those who do usually don't or can't own many due to licensing restrictions/requirements. When you can't or don't own as many firearms, you can afford to spend more on the few.

The English middle class with industrialization rose out of the peasantry but a long way from purchasing a £100k Purdy.

Perhaps it’s because of the vast distances here that settlers put a premium on a good horse; maybe that attitude inculcated into today’s brain results in the $70k 4w truck ( the technical features of which will never be used) the Stevens 311 20 lying on the floor in back.

Agree with a lot of what you say....but the Settler DNA for the most part no longer exists in the majority of those here today. Most, myself included probably wouldn't last a month on the trail west. You either had it or you didn't, and you couldn't BS your way West on the internet.

Then again like guns, I never favored beater vehicles.

The Citoris have always, mostly, been overweight though of good quality. Ive had three? Even their so-called “lightweight” or “feather” or “featherlight” models, Lightening and Field Grade’s, etc., have mostly been too heavy in my view. How many ways can you describe a 20 or 16 ga (if offered) shotgun that weighs 61/2 to 7 lbs? 😀 12’s we’re often a bit over.

The one that hit the mark for me was the Superlight Feather in 16 at 6lbs (Miroku) which I just obtained though it took some years of casually looking. Of course it has an aluminum receiver but with a steel breech face. These have been shown not to wear any quicker than an all steel receiver. Obviously they didn’t have a big demand for them which mystifies me.

That philosophy has been mentioned as what they should have done by more than a few here...

Oh, there were a lot that “didn’t have it” that are under the sod somewhere or turned around at some point..

I’m pretty sure there were the usual BS’ers too, including some of the “journalists” who recorded the various personalities of those bygone periods.

Yes but we like variety. Many of us even have several different rifles and/or shotguns for hunting the same species under different conditions. In contrast that professional game manager, who was contracted to kill upwards of 500 muntjac, fallow, roe and red deer per year off of several different large estates only owned two rifles.