Back in the day, when Western Cartridge Co. first brought us high velocity, progressive burning powder loads, and upped the 16-gauge payload to 1 1/8ounce and the 20-gauge to one ounce, they put up their 12- and 20-gauge Super-X loads in their 2 3/4 inch FIELD shell. But, for the 16-gauge Super-X load they went with the "standard" 2 9/16 inch FIELD shell. The 2 3/4 inch 16-gauge shell really started to get some traction when Remington Arms Co., Inc. brought out their Model 11 and "Sportsman" autoloaders in 16-gauge made for 2 3/4 inch shells. While the high velocity, progressive burning powder load, like the Remington Nitro-Express, in the 2 9/16 inch shell was 3 drams equiv. pushing 1 1/8 ounce of shot, for their new autoloaders they introduced their 2 3/4 inch Auto-Express 16-gauge shell with 3 1/4 drams equiv. pushing the 1 1/8 ounce of shot. Winchester had such a load in their July 1931 catalog. I don't have anything Peters between 1932 which doesn't have such a load and 1935 which does. In that they already had it in the Winchester brand, the Olin's didn't get around to adding such a load to their Western Super-X line until 1938.
