16ga.com ~ View topic

I found this on the Sportmans Guide website. The artical is tittled 'Shotgunning: How To Gauge Your Success' and is
by Mike Roux. Here is the link: http://www.sportsmansguide.com/tip/tip_read.asp?tid=175185&sid=73

But here is the item of interest:

'16-Gauge
Although the first shotgun I ever hunted with was a side-by-side 16-gauge, it was and is, for all practical purposes, a dead gauge. It is not as a good a performer as the 12-gauge and lends nothing extra over the 20. Manufacturers do not offer a lot of variations in 16-gauge and ammo is sometimes hard to find. This gauge has been overlooked as an official skeet-shooting gauge and for good reason. The advertised velocity of the 16-gauge have never measured-up to manufacturers' promises. With no perceived weight difference from the 12-gauge, the lowly 16-gauge is destined for extinction.'

Very discourging to read this sort of thing.

Joined: 19 Jun 2004 Posts: 1480 Location: Mpls, MN.

I've seen the same thing written in gun magazines that date back 60 or 70 years.

Relax, there is nothing in the world of physics that keeps a 16 from having the velocity of a 12.

Most, not all, but most 16s, especially the older crop as opposed to the recent versions, are lighter, and more pleasant for all day carrying than a typical 12.

Reports of the death of the 16, are, well, exaggerated.
Best,
Ted

Joined: 02 Jun 2007 Posts: 107 Location: N.W. Iowa

I can't remember the 1st time I read the bit about "16's and extinction" and today I will attribute it to (Older age).
Mr' Roux has an opinion and he's entitled to it but rest assured the venerable 16 gauge will surely outlive his musings and for that matter.... Him as well

Joined: 11 Jan 2006 Posts: 311

Writers have been predicting the death of the 16 for the last 40 years. The 16 is not likely to ever regain the popularity it once had but I don't see it becoming extinct.

A common complaint since I have been lurking on this forum is difficulty in finding ammo. The 16 is not a gage in which you can walk into a shop and expect to find a large selection (if any). That's OK with me, I just order mine by the flat. Better to be proactive about ammo than whine about it.

Weight of the 16 used to be its selling point. A 16 ga gun on a proper frame weighed less than a 12. Today, however, with guns like the 12ga Benelli ultra lite its hard to make the case about saving weight with a 16.

The 16 will continue to have a very limited appeal to a small group of followers. And that's OK by me. I like shooting/using oddball cartridges.

Member Joined: 31 Oct 2005 Posts: 446 Location: Wisconsin

The only gun writers I trust are Jack O'Connor and Elmer Keith and they are both deceased.
Gun writers are hacks who live off free lodging, hunts and reduced prices on firearms for which they prostitute themselves and write pure drivel. Have you EVER read a BAD firearm review? That's because at minimum, the writer is offered the firearm at a heavily discounted price after the review is over. This happens even at the NRA publications and the NRA refuses to acknowledge or change.
I subscribe to no gun related periodicals. -Dick

Guest

Member Joined: 18 Nov 2005 Posts: 398 Location: S Fl

A quick google of his name reveals "he has been a member of the pro-staff of several outdoor product manufacturers....."

Whether you call 'em "Mossy Oafs" or "Basspros" or just whore, it's all the same.

No doubt if one of his "clients" decided to market a 16 ga, he'd be writing something like "the long neglected 16 ga is making a comeback, and deservedly so."
Yadda yadda yadda..........

Pete

I'm with foursquare. Most writers punch out what people wanna hear. He's not very well informed for sure. Hate to see folks that are just getting into the shotgun have to read crap like this joe is writing. I got a good size walk in freezer and theres always stuff in it that got there by way of the "dead gauge". Rolling Eyes

Let the naysayers have their say as you enjoy your 16(s). I am seeing more 16s in the field every season. We need to get the ammo manufacturers onboard so we can get some decent hulls to load.

Hc

Joined: 06 Apr 2007 Posts: 50

When I was about ten, I can remember my dad telling me that the sixteen guage was not a popular gauage and probably will disappear in the future. I'm 60 this year and still waiting for the demise

I have hunted small game with a sixteen for the last 50 years and never found it wanting. I take a little post war 'Elsie" to the range on Fridays and shoot trap over the lunch hour. I, and Elsie, hold our own with guys half our age shooting 12 guage auto's.

Say what they will about the 16 guage, every one I have had, fit me better and felt more comfortable, and most importantly I enjoyed shooting it more than the other bigger gauges.

I think the operative term in that last paragraph was " fit me btter". For whatever reason, lighter, smaller frame, it was more comfortable. More enjoyable!

I still shoot my 12 gauge, I don't own a 20 guage, but if I have a favorate it is the 16. From the porularity of the European double guns on the auction sights, these days, I would say that the popularity is possiobly on the rise again?

Joined: 19 Jan 2006 Posts: 91

The writer of the posted piece, is an absolute idiot. For him to say the 16 has nothing on the 20 ga. surely shows he is from writing school with no practical experience. The 20 won't even come close to what a 16 does. The minor difference between the 12 and 16, is minimal for the uplands.

It is certainly a good thing that many of the readers of this stuff they spew, are novices without any practical experience. Otherwise, no one would buy a periodical on shotguns or rifles for that matter.

Guest

Even Gene Hill and Michael McIntosh, both fine writers and from what I hear both good field shots and fans of the 16, lamented the 16 as dead, yet here we all are in this crazy little club of ours. Hmmm...something doesn't match up.

As another poster noted, a good, light 12 (and I have one) still has the lines and girth of a 12. To me, the right 16 is indeed the gun that carries like a 20, hits like a 12.

And for the man in question to say that the 16 has nothing over the 20 tells me he hasn't spent much time in the field with a 16. Or, for that matter, at any of the clay bird games. Do your job, and the 16 smacks with authority. I agree completely with the poster who said the 16 will outlast this Roux gentleman.

I have four 16s in the safe, three of them bought NIB, and have little problem finding game loads for practice or premium loads for hunting. No, the practice shells aren't always as super easy to find as inexpensive cheapie 12s or 20s, but they're out there to be had, as are the premium loads.

I have found the best medicine for people who proclaim the 16 obsolete or as having nothing on the 20 is to shoot like a bad mofo, then give 'em a wink.
The "queen of the uplands" still rules, IMO.

Guest

On the point of all gun writers being whores and hacks, I wouldn't go that far.

-- Gene Hill was hardly a hack; the man was a big gun in the advertising world before he left for shotgun writing, and he had obvious talent.
-- Datus Proper was retired diplomat who wrote a great book on pheasant hunting.
-- Mike McIntosh was a professor of English (specializing in Shakespeare, if I remember correctly) and writes beautifully. I disagree with a couple of McInotsh's long-held and oft-stated stances, but much like Gene Hill's work, I find many of McIntosh's impressions match my own field experiences ... and I started reading him after I was a little experienced, so I doubt it was a matter of him influencing me.
-- I also enjoy Larry Brown's pieces, and we know Larry is a retired colonel who has shot one heck of a lot of pheasants and loves the 16. I think it is, for him, a second career, and I've never noticed any pieces by him where he prostitutes his opinion.
-- Charlie Waterman writes (or wrote; I don't know if he's still with us) from experience, and he was a decent man and a pretty fair writer.
--Ben O. Williams -- he of the great plains and big packs of Brits fame -- knows his stuff. Probably a better guide and photgrapher than writer, but he gets the job done.
-- Bob Brister was actually a newspaper man and hell of a shot before he wrote his famous and excellent book. And he shot very well until the end of his life.
-- Jim Fergus' two "Road" books are not the works of a hack.
-- And would anyone here call George Bird Evans a man afraid to state his own opinions?

JMO, YMMV: Most, but not all, of these gents are older or no longer with us, but like the 16, I think good gun writing will still pop its head up up every now and then. Maybe it will come -- as in the case of Hill, McIntosh, Proper and Brown -- from people in their second careers, but I think it will still come.