The American market is certainly stronger for small bores.
Collectors like to buy toys they don't have and most have a nice 12-bore as more are available.
They all start looking for the smaller stuff and there is less of it about so it sells faster and for more money.
I have no time for the small bore fetish personally. A close to 6 3/4 - 7lb 12-bore was made in far higher numbers than anything else for a reason - it does the job better. i'll get my crash helmet!
When I pulled out of the drive-up line at Kentucky Fried Chicken and proceeded out to the ranchland to bag my own birds I left the world of the rational and joined the world of sport. Carrying the most rational effective deadly shotgun ever built does not move me back to the rational world.
And besides that some people fish with a flyrod, 4 pound tippet and a #22 Parchute Adams. Others, more interested in a better job, use dynamite!
And a 7 pound 12 bore does everything better than a 5-1/4 pound 28 gauge except carry on a 9 hour foot hunt behind pointing dogs.
Now I will get my helmet!
