Nostalgia

It's funny how such an esoteric thing such as nostalgia can influence our thoughts and decisions for a lifetime.

My purchase of the 16 ga. RBL is a case in point.

I didn't come from a hunting or even gun owning family, so I had no mentors to lead me to these pursuits as a young man.

But, I vividly remember finding a shotgun shell in the woods behind the house as a boy of about eight years old. The older guys used to hunt back there, whe there was still lots of land available and game was more plentiful.

That empty hull I picked up was stamped 16 gauge, and I can still see that empty in my mind's eye. It must have made an impression on me. I guess that young boys are impressionable, and these seemingly insignifigant occurances can shape one's future.

I confess to being somewhat of a contrarian, and finding value in the obsolete and things that have seen their day and fallen out of favor. I must admit that that is also part of the allure for me, not to mention the fact that I just consider the 16 ga. to be just about perfection. Perfectly positioned between the 12, which is often too much, and the twenty, which I sometimes find to be too little. Besides, those purple sixteen gauge hulls are just too purty!

"The Queen of the Uplands", as the Sixteen came to be known, fit's my personality, and my gunning plans just about perfectly... Won't come across a whole lot of guys in the woods with them... and that's just the way I like it!