Another nice detail is the engraved and cut-out breech locking lever. Man, I like Schnabel forends, on shotguns and rifles. Same goes for all gauges in the line.įeatures of the deluxe model include the types of touches seen on more expensive shotguns, like classy floral engraving with gold inlays, gold trigger, crisp checkered AA-grade walnut stock in Prince of Wales style and Schnabel forend. The 16-gauge is a true 16-gauge frame, not a 16-gauge barrel fitted to a 12-gauge frame, said Daren Cole of Franchi, who was along on the hunt to answer questions just like that. The SLX frames, by the way, are true to their gauge.
#Snake charmer 2 12 gauge shotgun plus
The SLX has the same lightweight aluminum-alloy frame – the 16-gauge version weighing just 5.8 pounds, a measurable plus when toting it day in and day out across upland fields – or clay courses, for that matter. There is no doubt that this is a great shotgun for pheasants. “How’s that for a start?” I shouted across the line. I swung and fired, then the second barrel, but the pheasant showed no reaction other than shifting to a higher gear. The first pheasant rocketed up on my end, the right, and made a sweeping turn to put distance between us. Lined out for our first morning’s hunt, the four of us hunters waited for Jase Sorenson to give the signal to follow the dogs into the field. Anxious, I snuck in a couple quick sessions with clays while waiting for the real test, a pheasant, chukar and Hungarian partridge hunt (and sporting clays) at Pheasant Bonanza near Tekamah, Nebraska. They had me at 16-gauge.įranchi’s Instinct SLX arrived in its secure orange carrying case but circumstances intervened to prevent me from getting many chances to put it to use, first blizzard conditions, then covid, then brutal record-setting low temperatures. Faster when Franchi brought out their Instinct SLX in 12, 20 and 16-gauge – and then 28 gauge. My 12- and 20-gauge world began unraveling. So something about “recoil of a 20 but knockdown of a 12” stuck. Somewhere along the line, the slow-to-glow lightbulb clicked on, maybe on the umpteenth time I read this about 16-gauge: It carries – and recoils – like a 20 but has the knockdown power of a 12.Ī 16-gauge has a lot less kick than that of a 12-gauge, so for a day of high-capacity shooting the 16-gauge can be quite helpful to your shoulder. 410 was mostly a snake-charmer until recent ammunition improvements (Think tungsten.) have been a game-changer, making it a legitimate game-getter.īut through it all, 16-gauge remained on the periphery, blipping on the outer circle of my radar as companies began producing more shotguns and more models. Oh, I hunted with a 28-gauge along the way but came away wanting more when pheasants flushed far ahead. Sub gauges are the way to go for upland shotguns. Plus, many of the new non-toxic shotshells, like Kent’s bismuth loads, are safe to shoot in fixed-choke shotguns “so we think a lot of guns got brought out of the safe and into the field in recent years,” Barry said. It appeared the 16-gauge and other now-called sub-gauges were staging a comeback, spurred by new interest fed as much as anything by improvements in shotshells that give the smaller gauges improved downrange performance and lethality. In 2012 I took note when Browning brought out their newly designed A5 and nodded in approval when they introduced the Sweet 16 version, which “put some life in the 16-gauge,” according to Jeff Barry of Kent Cartridge Company. It took years but things started to change.
Like many, I had written off 16-gauge as a relic, there not being many – or any – choices in 16-gauge shotguns or ammunition in the hardware stores that were our main source of sporting arms and ammunition. Back in junior-high days when we hunted pheasants, my buddy, Pat, carried a hand-me-down bolt-action 16-gauge with worn wooden stock but I never gave it much thought, carrying my brother’s 20-gauge pump until I, skipping over 16-gauge, got my own 12-gauge double-barrel.
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