Last year, I used a 20ga gun a hair over 6lbs with 1 oz of #5s on wild phez. The load was Rem's Nitro Pheasant load at 1300 fps. When I patterned it, it kicked fairly stoutly but had a nice even pattern (IC/M). During the hunt, I never noticed any particularly heavy recoil. The load and 20ga gun were deadly that openner. This year, I used a 20ga 391 with the same load to awesome results. Sure, larger bores have advantages. But, I like having a choice of guns and pushing the 20g up a bit and pulling the 12g down covers similar capability to my pleasure and choice at my whim.