Didn't smooth bore rifles come before shotguns and weren't these rifles measured as bore, shotgunning appeard later and was just a fist full of shot thrown down the barrell instead of a lead ball. Gauge seems to be a Yankee thing invented to be different to the Pommies probably because you guys don't like them all that much. Here in Australia we don't like them much better either and have migrated to the yankee term. Also we have the situation where we have bore rifles in singles and doubles, a 4 bore double rifle is described as that and not as a 4 gauge double rifle, Perhaps we could start a new term and talk about our 729 shot gun, that is if we could remember all the different bore measurements or then should we go down the metric line, for me I don't give a sh-one-t what it is so long as you use the number ie 12 14 16 20 etc
Hotrach
