I'm back. You folks have been busy. I see lots of 20s, a 16 and two 28s so-far. Here's my situation: I'm not much good with an over/under because I have an eye-dominance issue. With a side by side, the dominance issue isn't even a factor because the tubes seem to frame the shot quite nicely for me. An over/under, however, causes my opposite eye to become dominate and it can skew my shooting rather badly. I'm also fairly traditional and I've shot side by sides since my youth, so I don't really feel like I'm missing-out on much. I like side by sides, I like how they look and how they handle. So, like most folks, I have preferences. In Minnesota, I find myself walking a great deal in between actual shooting situations and almost all of that time is spent in fairly high-alert. This means that the gun is either at port arms or nearly so (I should also point out here that I hunt grouse without a dog). In the time I'm there, the leaves are in the process of falling, so I generally start-out hunting with fairly dense foliage that thins as the days wear on. The shooting is usually a fairly quick proposition. From the time you see the bird (or hear the flush) to when you shoot is usually no more than 2 seconds. What I have found that I need to be consistantly sucessful is: 1. a gun that fits very well, and 2. a gun that moves very quickly, even when I'm fatigued. From trial and error I have found that a gun that weighs about 6 pounds is the right weight for me to carry all day. I also seem to shoot a bit better if the tubes are around 28-inches long, because I tend to chop through my swing if they are any shorter. The guns I have used to do this "research" have included 12s, 16s, 20s, and 28s. The 12s always seem to be the most lethal, with 16s following as a close second. The 20s and 28s haven't performed well for me in these situations for a number of reasons, the biggest (after my questionable shooting ability) being pattern size and density. Light 12s are not common in this country, so they aren't generally well known here. The lightest 12s I've personally come across were all vintage English guns.

Last edited by Lloyd3; 02/26/13 03:44 PM.