A previous poster asked for thoughts on these guns so here goes. For many years I was crazy about 2 inchers and examined a bunch and eventually bought an Arrieta. My reasons: I wanted a slimmer action than a conventional 12 and I wanted thicker barrel walls than the average Brit 2 inch gun. I have come across a few Brit guns with actions as wide as as a standard 12. They seem to achieve their light weight by striking the barrels super thin. However, the majority of the guns I looked at were quite svelte with actions no wider than 16 gauge guns. But most of them were loose and none of those had removable hinge pins. I doubt than any of those guns had been shot a lot so I don't know why that should be. Naturally I have given it thought but speculation without experimentation is useless.
Wall thickness. As any engineer will know, given two tubes of the same wall thickness but different diameters the smaller will withstand greater pressure. But will it withstand greater dent producing impact? So to satisfy, at least myself, I turned down two 6 inch steel pipe nipples, one 1/2" and one 3/4" to 30 thousands and dropped a 3/4" ball bearing from increasing heights on to the center line of both. No glancing blows. That produced a dent on the 3/4" tube at about half the drop required for the 1/2" tube. I do not remember the exact heights after so many years but it certainly impressed me at the time.
So a 16 gauge set of barrels with .030" walls weighing the same as a set of 12 gauge barrels with .020" walls will be way more resistant to dents, way, way more.
Since a big plus of light guns is for hunting in cover or brush, the likelyest place for whacking it into a tree, it's pretty obvious thinly struck barrels could be a problem.
The Arrieta I had was heavier than Brit guns at 5 lbs. 13 ozs. but was proved at normal 12 gauge pressure. More important to me the minimum wall thickness was .028". It also was a side lock with a replaceable hinge pin. Built on a 16 gauge frame it was a very nice gun but in the final analysis the difficulty of finding ammo, well cheap ammo anyway, wore on m. It held no advantage over a 16 or 20 gauge of the same weight. Still, the cartridges look cute.
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