1920's . . . pheasants hadn't really caught on yet in a big way. Numbers of prairie chickens and sharptails were drastically reduced. A lot of bird hunting was for waterfowl, and they require tighter chokes. And a lot of the field grade 12ga sxs sold were general purpose guns. Farmers' tools, for shooting anything from a rabbit to a duck to the proverbial fox robbing the hen house.

The smaller bores, 16's and 20's, were more along the line of specialty guns, for ruffed grouse or quail. And there were far fewer of those made in comparison to 12's. For example, Fox made about 107,000 Sterlingworths in 12ga compared to 45,000 16 and 20ga Sterlys, combined.

Last edited by L. Brown; 05/26/14 07:54 AM.