Mr. Roberts: I completely understand about the beauty of a slim, light and long sub-gauge gun. They ARE quite attractive! My brother shoots a Scottish 20 (a Graham BLNE) that I talked him into (many years ago now) and he absolutely loves it (and he does allright with it...perhaps more good than great). I've had several 20-gauge guns over the years and while I loved how they looked and carried, I didn't like their lethality on game. Now...that's probably all on me (and my many failures as a shotgunner), but no-matter as I am primarily interested in two things when I go afield...filling my bag when hunting and then achieving only "clean kills". I like everything about a good day afield (& look-forward to it all winter and summer long) but...there must be a reasonable chance at success (at least as I define it). A good 12 (& possibly an exceptional 16) seems to better serve those ends for me.

12boreman: I've never had the luxury of shooting or hunting a "fine" short 10, so I'm still open there to argument. I've seen several over the years that I was quite impressed with, but I've never gone further than that with one. The ammo challenges are even greater than the 16-gauge issues I mentioned earlier here and clearly limit them for the vast cross-section of gun folks.

KY John: I own and use archaic guns as well, and for exactly the reasons you articulated earlier here so-adroitly. They are not "efficient" in any modern sense, but they are "art" to my eyes and I love how they feel in my hands.

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

Last edited by Lloyd3; 04/11/24 12:50 PM.