Anybody who bad mouths a 16 fails to give them a fair shake. You hear the 28 called a perfect gauge because it is a square load. In reality it is the 16 which fills that bill. For upland shooting the 16 takes a back seat to nobody. A Ithaca 37 in 16 is a sweet shooting and easy to carry gun.
The real problem is that the gauges are too close to each other, that they can not help but all do the things the next gauge larger or smaller do as well or almost as well. A lightly loaded 12 can do what a 16 or 20 can do with a 3/4 or 7/8 ounce load. A 20 loaded with 1 ounce can do just about as well as a 12 or 16 can do with 1 ounce. A 16 can step up into 12 territory or down to 20 gauge territory. That was my problem with the 24. I could dumb down a 20 or just shoot a normal 28 and outperform a 24. Due to lack of demand, the 24 was never developed using the more modern and capable powders. It has become the who care gauge. Cute and odd but is that enough? A new plow, in times, needing no plows.
