The 28 is hardly new. There might be a resurgance in interst in it, but it’s not new.
There were commercially made 28 bores all the way back to the blackpowder percussion era. With the advent of the breechloader, I know pinfire cartridges were available from a variety of English and European makers in 28 bore, so the “modern” 28 goes back at least to the 1870s.
Parker was argueably the American maker who did the most to amp up interest in the 28 on this side of the pond.
As far as the 16 gauge “going out of production this year, this isn’t exactly true. First, the 16 has been out of mainstream production as a repeater for quite some time. Remington and Browning have both tried to rekindle interest with various production guns over the last 20 years.
As far as doubles, in addtion to Stoeger, there are a varity of doubles in current production. Granted, these may be as “special runs” so they might not always be available from a distributor.
My father has never owned a 12 gauge. He hunted ONLY with 16 and 20 gauges. He contends–and I believe correctly–that before the advent of the lightweight 20 gauge that could fire 3 inch shells, the 16 was the ultimate lightweight pheasant and ruffed grouse gun.
My dad carries a Remington Model 11 in 16 gauge for pheasant and he uses it with tremendous effectiveness. Last year we were out in western MN on private land and had just finished a piece and were sitting with guns unloaded listening to the Gophers on the radio.
Some other hunters were pushing an adjoining parcel of CRP and they pushed a rooster out the end and it took the wind and curled on a flight pather that indicated it would come right over us. At about 30,000 feet.
I pointed the bird out to dad and said, jokingly, “Shoot that pheasant when it comes over us, would you?”
Dad took me seriously and said, “OK, just this once.”
He walked up to the cab of the truck, opened the door, uncased his 16, dropped one shell in, and slamed the bolt shut and started his swing. Bang! The rooster folded like suitcase and did that head-down fall straight into the stubble. Off went the dogs.
I’m not sure how high that bird was, but I could have fired a case of shells at it and not touched a feather. It was a 30 yard shot if it was a foot, I know that.
I turned to my uncle Mark and said, “I just HATE it when he does s!!t like that.”
“Well, he’s been doing s##t like that to me for 50 years. I got used to it by the mid-60s. It’s still a little annoying though.”
About then dad walks around to the back of the truck and said, “Hey, I think I got it. We should pass shoot pheasants more often!”
Grouse
Anyway, thanks for doing so. When you say “repeater”, is that including pumps? From what I was told the Browning BPS was no longer available in 16.
I have an old 28 gauge single shot, looks like hell but it still shoots 