My gun safe has a complete selection of hunter’s gauges; 12, 16, 20 and 28, and if it weren’t for the Two “W’s”, Waterfowl and Wounded leopards, I think I could be very happy with nothing but a few 20 gauges of various actions and configurations to choose from. But, I shoot waterfowl all the time including big divers, sea ducks and swan so I need a 12 gauge and, while I hope to never have to deal with one, it’s nice to know I have a 12 if a wounded leopard is called out on the neighborhood Facebook page.

Now that I think about it, though, I still might not be giving the yellow-hulled beauty enough credit. My son learned to hunt waterfowl with a 20 gauge youth model and I watched him kill everything from teal to sea ducks and two tundra swans with a 20 and he didn’t expend many shells on cripples either. It’s nice to know that the 3” configuration is there for when steel shot is required but I don’t recall ever buying, or needing for that matter, a 3” 20 gauge load of lead or soft-non-toxic loads. The truth is that only thing the 3” twenty gauge was ever really meant to kill was the 16 gauge.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the 16 gauge and have a classic Belgium Sweet Sixteen. At this point I can’t imagine the three weekends of the September teal season without her. The 16 gauge is a fine round with effectiveness on game, obviously, laying somewhere between the 20 gauge and the 12 gauge. But, while ammo manufacturers were trying to kill the 16 gauge, gun writers were trying to save it. Who remember “carries like a 20 but hits like a 12”? Ballistics aren’t affected by well-worded prose, people are, but even with the help of gun writers what’s left of the sixteen gauge’s popularity is largely based on its unpopularity. It’s hard to standout in a group of 25 or so hunters all uncasing guns just prior to the noon kick-off of the September dove season. Pulling out a 16 and leaving a pile of instantly recognizable purple hulls makes that standout statement. The dawning of social media has made the need to stand-out even greater and has given even more new life to the non-skeet gauge. Let’s face it, yellow hulls just blend in with the changing leaves and corn cobs – nothing interesting to see there. But the 20 gauge guns still kill birds.

What about the 28? It has a reputation for “punching above its weight.” That’s almost laughable. Physics, as we know it, does change as things get small but it’s at the sub-atomic level where this happens not at the sub-gauge level. Data shows that AA skeet shooter’s scores only drop about ¼ of a clay target on 100 rounds when going from the 20 to the 28 but a whopping, by comparison, 1½ birds when going from a 28 to a .410. That certainly proves a 28 punches above its class, right? Well, not really. The .410 is actually a 67 gauge so the drop in gauge between a 20 and 28 is not comparable to the drop between a 28 and a .410. It’s a 39 gauge drop from a 28 to a .410 so maybe the .410 is the one punching above its weight. Yeah, I know, gauge is exponential…actually reciprocal cubic but no matter how it is looked at, there is a much bigger drop between the .410 and 28 than there is between the 28 and the 20 gauge.

If the 28 truly did punch above its weight it would basically be redundant to the 20 gauge. I’m not knocking the 28 gauge, just the opposite actually. I love the 28 gauge specifically because it is less than a 20 gauge. I think the 28 is perfect for some of the easier to kill birds like snipe and rail but there are places that require steel for such birds so a 28, all the sudden, isn’t an option. Folks kill woodcock and certainly doves and grouse with a 28 but they are a little tougher birds and deserve the extra respect and power of a 20 gauge load.

I’ve compared the gadwall to the brunette that lived down the street – pleasant looking and in the same caste unlike the inaccessible blonde cheerleader or spunky redhead. I feel the same way about the 20 gauge. Its ordinary hides its beauty. There are no instantly recognizable clichés that define the 20 gauge other than, maybe, the unflattering term “youth model”. Truth is that a 20 gauge in the right proportions is a man’s bird gun that’s versatile enough to jump on a plane and fly anywhere in the country being ready for any non-web-footed birds that might await its owner in those unknown regions.
My only point to all these words is to take time this fall to get acquainted or, hopefully, reacquainted with the brunette beauty of your youth.