Poll....who is hunting with small gauge for up-land birds?

[24 grams]

16 for wild pheasants and prairie grouse. 28 for doves and preserve birds. 20 just for fun - whenever!

[Mark Garrett]

I mostly shoot a 16ga and sometimes a short 10

[George "Scott" Davis]

16 gauge except late season prairie birds ( pheasant, sharptail) then it's a 12 even with great dogs sometimes you shots can be a little longer.

[Harry Gietler]

I use Browning Bss shotguns 12ga. for serious hunting. They handle any load you feed them and they are built like a bank vault. The12ga. will do anything the smaller ga. guns will do and do it better. With that being said here is a quote from THE SHOTGUNNERS BOOK by Askins 1958 The perfect shotgun is the 12. If, man or boy, a gent isnt stud enough to shoot a 12 then he should take up ping pong. The other gauges are makeshifts that do a killing job but never with the lethality of this remarkably versatile gauge Harry

[Dean Romig]

Askins’ opinion was exactly that - his opinion. And it certainly doesn’t fit the way I like to hunt and shoot and doesn’t even remotely define a significant number of us.





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[Woodcock survey]

Gun writers are paid to have opinions and to get paid they need a lot of them. They change them like socks and tout the latest fad as the world beater that it is.
We shoot our 100 year old technology and smile.

[Mills]

Lots of quail plantations require either a 20 or 28 double gun these days. I saw them shut down a guy with a 12 last year.

They ought to allow 16s in my opinion and why they don't I do not know.

[Craig Larter]

20 gauge 26" barrels for me either Fox or Parker everything from wild Pheasants in SD, wild quail in TX to woodcock and grouse closer to home. The Parker is 26" O frame and weights 6 lbs 12 oz. It has some heft which keeps my swing going on wild pheasants. The Fox is 5 lbs 14 oz and more open chokes, my grouse and woodcock gun.
Big ducks are a different story strictly a 12 ga or 10 ga affair for me.

[Harry Gietler]

Here are a few more words of wisdom from Askins book The popularity of the 16ga. is about on a par with death and taxes. The 20ga. on the other hand remains fairly popular shooting iron. However, there isnt anything you can do with a 20ga. that cannot be accomplished with twice the efficiency swinging a 12ga. Next we come to the stinking poor 28 and 410 ga.the unparalleled bird cripplers and the most efficient wounder of game. Harry ps. shoot 12 ga.guns, the king of the gauges

[Researcher]

I've shot wild Pheasants with every gauge from my 12-gauge 3-inch Super-Fox to the 28-gauge, and I've shot some Doves and Quail with the .410-bore. For most of my years the great bulk of my Pheasants and prairie grouse have been with "Meat-in-the-Pot" my 1914 vintage A-Grade, Ansley H. Fox.

21460 12-ga A-Grade right & Catalogue.jpg

Late years I have shot quite a few with my RBL-16, especially in areas where non-tox is required. Two of my recent acquisitions have been 16-gauges, both of 1941 vintage, a Model 21 Skeet Gun and a 26-inch barrel VHE. Hoping I live long enough to shoot some birds with both.