None anymore. That's why it was gradually phased out and you can have hot 20 or low 12 now.
It came in the time that paper or even brass cartridges were a thing, but you can have anywhere from 2+3/4 (or shorter) 12 gauges at he low end with less shot but more propellant. Kind of like how 3 or 3+1/2 inch filled the gap where 10 gauge used to exist.
There were never all that popular in the Anglosphere. Picrel is from a book written by one of the most famous English shotgun makers. They were common in German and Austrian guns, perhaps because if you are building a Drilling double 12ga barrels plus a rifle barrel is a bit heavy but with 16ga it is a lot handier.
Personally I don't care for 16ga. I get the appeal of a wanting a lighter gun for hunting upland game but I'd much rather take a 20 or 28. And that's especially true with modern cartridges. As far as I'm concerned the 16ga carries like a 12ga but hits like a 20.
They're unprofitable and sitting in Granddad's closet. Doesn't mean they don't exist.
>Doesn't mean they don't exist.
Nobody is trying to tell you the 16ga doesn't exist or that' it's shitty. We're saying it was never dominant in the market and it's always been less popular than other gauges, unless you want to talk about Continental Europe 150 years ago.
homie I just old you it was a quarter of the market for 20 years.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
A quarter of the market sounds "less popular than other gauges" to me. And that's assuming I believe your unsourced data point. Where is that 25% figure from?
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
if your car was a quarter of all cars sold you would absolutely consider it to be the most popular car in the world, it all depends on the market and the competition was stiff
Counting sales of shells not guns? Then yeah, probably, a lot of 16ga came back as trophies in WW2. My grandfather brought back a single shot 16ga and a Sauer drilling with a 16ga barrel, along with a bunch of other random shit (Zeiss medium-format camera, Sauer 38H, etc)
>after WWII
There's your key. Lots of vets using their free liberated shotguns to pop raccoons and ducks. Doesn't make the 16ga popular, just means the guns were free.
10ga was very popular in the black powder era but not so much after smokeless became a thing. In fact it was essentially dead until lead shot bans started popping up and the modernized magnum 3.5" 10ga was invented. Since steel shot was the economical replacement for lead but steel is less dense than lead, a larger volume is required for the same effective load. Thus 10ga became a niche cartridge for duck and goose hunters. It wasn't dead, but it was still very much a specialist gun.
The 12ga was by far the biggest driver of the market. The other gauges existed but it wasn't like the pie was divided up evenly. The vast majority of American cartridge shottys were, and still are, 12ga.
They were a thing, sure, but they were never as popular as 20 or 12ga even back during the days of the Auto 5 "Sweet Sixteen". A 16ga is even less common than a 28ga these days.
Looking at Gunbroker there are 2020 28gas for sale right now and 1500 16gas. Looking at GunsInternational (it's an American site despite the name) there are 646 28gas and 375 16s.
Present? Yes. Popular? Not by a longshot. Used to work at a gunstore and I'd say ~maybe~ 5% of our shotguns were 16g. And of those, basically all of them were used/antique
>What niche does it fill that 20 or 12 gauge doesn't?
It's a compromise load. I think it's a very good compromise and I wished it were more popular so the price of the ammo would be the same as 12g or 20g. But that's not gonna happen.
I think 12g is more popular simply because it's harder to miss with it using birdshot. But 12g is often overkill.
I find 20g a bit too anemic.
16g would be perfect.
It's French, you see.
None anymore. That's why it was gradually phased out and you can have hot 20 or low 12 now.
It came in the time that paper or even brass cartridges were a thing, but you can have anywhere from 2+3/4 (or shorter) 12 gauges at he low end with less shot but more propellant. Kind of like how 3 or 3+1/2 inch filled the gap where 10 gauge used to exist.
There were never all that popular in the Anglosphere. Picrel is from a book written by one of the most famous English shotgun makers. They were common in German and Austrian guns, perhaps because if you are building a Drilling double 12ga barrels plus a rifle barrel is a bit heavy but with 16ga it is a lot handier.
Personally I don't care for 16ga. I get the appeal of a wanting a lighter gun for hunting upland game but I'd much rather take a 20 or 28. And that's especially true with modern cartridges. As far as I'm concerned the 16ga carries like a 12ga but hits like a 20.
They were pretty common in America, dumbass.
we aren't Anglo, you baked bean eating limey bastard.
Originally yes, and predominantly until the 1890s. Even during the revolution, most people in the colonies considered themselves “englishmen”.
Never ever. Even the fricking .410 was always more popular than the 16ga.
It was 1/4 the market after WWII for like two decades. That's not nothing when you have at least 4 other big boys in 10, 12, 20, and 410.
>Doesn't mean they don't exist.
Nobody is trying to tell you the 16ga doesn't exist or that' it's shitty. We're saying it was never dominant in the market and it's always been less popular than other gauges, unless you want to talk about Continental Europe 150 years ago.
homie I just old you it was a quarter of the market for 20 years.
A quarter of the market sounds "less popular than other gauges" to me. And that's assuming I believe your unsourced data point. Where is that 25% figure from?
if your car was a quarter of all cars sold you would absolutely consider it to be the most popular car in the world, it all depends on the market and the competition was stiff
Counting sales of shells not guns? Then yeah, probably, a lot of 16ga came back as trophies in WW2. My grandfather brought back a single shot 16ga and a Sauer drilling with a 16ga barrel, along with a bunch of other random shit (Zeiss medium-format camera, Sauer 38H, etc)
>after WWII
There's your key. Lots of vets using their free liberated shotguns to pop raccoons and ducks. Doesn't make the 16ga popular, just means the guns were free.
10ga was very popular in the black powder era but not so much after smokeless became a thing. In fact it was essentially dead until lead shot bans started popping up and the modernized magnum 3.5" 10ga was invented. Since steel shot was the economical replacement for lead but steel is less dense than lead, a larger volume is required for the same effective load. Thus 10ga became a niche cartridge for duck and goose hunters. It wasn't dead, but it was still very much a specialist gun.
The 12ga was by far the biggest driver of the market. The other gauges existed but it wasn't like the pie was divided up evenly. The vast majority of American cartridge shottys were, and still are, 12ga.
They were a thing, sure, but they were never as popular as 20 or 12ga even back during the days of the Auto 5 "Sweet Sixteen". A 16ga is even less common than a 28ga these days.
Looking at Gunbroker there are 2020 28gas for sale right now and 1500 16gas. Looking at GunsInternational (it's an American site despite the name) there are 646 28gas and 375 16s.
They're unprofitable and sitting in Granddad's closet. Doesn't mean they don't exist.
Present? Yes. Popular? Not by a longshot. Used to work at a gunstore and I'd say ~maybe~ 5% of our shotguns were 16g. And of those, basically all of them were used/antique
Lighter more compact weapon than 12 while still getting the same coverage at practical bird shot distances.
>What niche does it fill that 20 or 12 gauge doesn't?
It's a compromise load. I think it's a very good compromise and I wished it were more popular so the price of the ammo would be the same as 12g or 20g. But that's not gonna happen.
I think 12g is more popular simply because it's harder to miss with it using birdshot. But 12g is often overkill.
I find 20g a bit too anemic.
16g would be perfect.
Regular 12 and 16 ga loads have the same amount of lead, anon. The two differ in pressure and magnum availability for 12ga.
OK frick it, here's the article.
>https://projectupland.com/shotguns-and-shooting/shotguns/16-gauge-shotguns/
Being good. Same concept as .41 Magnum.
>41 Magnum.
So decent performance but an entirely niche round essentially relegated to handloading
Coolness.
Shotgun: 16ga
Pistol: .41 Magnum
Rifle: .300 Savage
Rimfire: .22 Long
Luv shooting clays with me 16, simple nuff