doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Has the 16 ga become obsolete?

Never had much use for one...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rwDmV1KWrKQ

Well Chuck, Californians are a little weird anyhow........

To quote you..."It takes two years to learn to talk and seventy years to learn to keep your mouth shut."

Joe,
Just my perspective for my uses. I've owned a few. Eventually, I sold them off. Factory loads were limited in availability and reloading required a commitment to another press, which I wasn't willing to make. Where others might use a 16g, I covered my needs by loads in 12 and 20g. No disrespect to those that find a 16g ideal for their uses. Some of my best friends shoot 16g.


Cman,
The topic was a question posed. I expect the OP was looking for personal insight. Possibly individuals in this forum have gotten to the point where different perspectives are no longer welcome. The sense of humor around here has left too.

About as obsolete as this 16 gauge shooter. Still does what it was designed for. New high velocity models might do it faster, or with more oomph.
Doesn't concern me much.

Short answer, no.

I suppose side-by-side shotguns, guns with cellulose stocks, muzzleloaders, and many other things are obsolete, by many standards. Some might argue that I'm obsolete as well. I don't really care.

Hunting has become obsolete.

All the rational people are getting their Gallinaceans, pre-cooked, at the drive-up window at Colonel Sander's place.

I hunted quail with three friends yesterday. Two of us were carrying sixteen gauges, one a Lefever and the other a Cashmore.

This fall and winter I carried a sixteen gauge sub-six pound Fox A grade with 26" barrels for thirty days or so in Montana and took huns, sharptails, and pheasant with it. I've taken bobs and a few blues with it in Texas and pheasant and bobs in Kansas. I've taken Texas dove with it during our second mini-season. Nothing obsolete about the 16 gauge that I can tell - except in the context of the Kentucky Fried Chicken drive up.

I have five bird dogs, GPS tracking collars, a bird dog club membership, two bird leases, a membership in a field trialing organization, a dedicated hunting vehicle, a dog trailer, and scores more of miscellaneous bird dog gear. So how much more effort and expense does it cost me to round up suitable 16 gauge shells for the shotgun I want to carry? If my sixteen is chambered 2-1/2" I can reload cut down plastic hulls or I can order in RST shells.

Except in the context of the drive through at Kentucky Fried Chicken the 16 gauge is a perfectly viable choice for a game gun.

As we get older and more experienced, think less of limits than our friends and dogs in the field---which I glean from posts here---we'll pick our shots and blithely find more pleasure in lighter guns and smaller gauges. It may be contagious.

I've been shooting a 16 gauge bird gun since 1990 and have never felt undergunned (or over gunned, for that matter). Cartridges are not not THAT hard to buy, or to load.