I too think AA hit it real close to the mark, for a good shape shooter. To bring much over that, it would need some other feature or features. The 30" bbl is nice, if you want a longish bbl., but otherwise it simply makes for a longer gun, not always advantageous .. its application dependent. Is the bbl nickel steel? I'm assuming 2&3/4" chamber and longer port opening for same, otherwise its short shells or rechamber & modification to the port opening. I sometimes shoot a short chambered one simply because, but its mostly because the funky buttstock with its very open and smallish pistol-grip comes up nicely in the field and I don't mind shooting a few of the old papers I have on hand for an ocassional day afield. If I were gonna use it much, I'd spring for the more modern short shells. For the gun you are describing, $275~$325 is about where I'd wanna buy, but you might have to pay as much as $425 to get one today that is a plain field grade that has not been cycled to death and still retains good blue and finish and no serious flaws. That's just my opinion. A 2&9/16" chambered gun should be less, but that does not automatically mean it will be the case. If it was a short gun that got modified, that hurts originality[=<$], so works good to your advantage. The economics to modify one simply don't work, but it does make them less sensitive to shell length and that can be advantageous if you don't have access to short ones. Sorry for the ramble. Did you buy it? Hey, how many really clean 16ga. mod 12 field guns are out there today? Fifty bucks won't take you to the movies, if there was even one worth seeing. Perspective matters & fun is time limited, unfortunately. I'da sent this diatribe PM, Jack, but I'm SOL w/that at the moment still.
