Like the 28 gauge the 16 gauge is a good balanced shotgun gauge!
But when was the last time a truly good American-built 16 gauge has been offered to the public?
The few 16 ga M870's of recent years are retrofitted 12ga guns!
Unlike the Model 12's and A-5 'Sweet Sixteens' of yesteryear.
Actually one would have to go back before the 1980's to find any plentiful 'real' 16ga shotgun models I believe.
About 12-14 years ago I got a little excited when Browning produced a very limited run of O/U Citori's that were 16ga, I think built on a 20 gauge frame.
But I decided against getting one mostly because of my lack of extra funds at the time!
And that Remington M870 would have been a a huge 'hit' I would bet, if like the Model 12 and Sweet Sixteen A-5 mentioned above,
had been built on a 16-gauge frame!
I recall when Remington before introducing their lightweight 20gauge frame in the late 1970's used to offer 20 gauge M870's built on 12 gauge frames.
Where was the 'excitement' shooting one of those bulky guns?The only Model 12 I have ever shot was a sixteen gagger, and evenything balanced together (shell-size. loading, gun-size, frame-size, etc.) working together made for a very nicely handling gun!
But for shooting chores where I want something smaller than a 12ga,
I skip the rare and hard-to-find, and hard-to-feed (with proper components) 16 gauge and go straight to the 20 gauge! Usually a 1-ounce load of whatever size pellet gets the job done, but if I ever need a 3inch 20ga load its usually limited to 1 1/8th oz loading that'll give a few more pellets to the pattern.
The sixteen gauge excells are launching 1 1/8th or 1 1/4th ounce shot-loads.
Sure wish Remington had made a 16ga-framed M870 instead lazily using 12ga hardware. The discussion about 16ga popularity might be a lot different.
