You don’t need to be a shotgun connoisseur to understand a nice shotgun when you pick it up. I am neither a connoisseur nor even a serious shotgunner, but I’ve shot enough of the finer ones to know what it feels like. Today we’ll venture into to another story about a handsome Browning double, the Citori 16 Gauge.
The Citori White Lightning
The Browning Citori line of shotguns has long been famous for its quality and performance. A beautiful match of attractive wood and steel are the basis for the gun, matched with a pair of 28-inch sixteen-gauge barrels. The receiver has beautifully engraved patterns to match its clean and smooth lines. Like most over & under shotguns, the gun is opened with a lever on the spine of the action. The Citori features a full-width tapered locking bolt, this makes for additional strength in keeping the gun closed. The locking mechanism is also tapered, allowing it to seat ever deeper with the wear that will occur over decades.
Behind that, is the safety selector. Again, like most over & under shotguns, the safety doubles as a barrel selector. You can slide the safety left and right to choose which of the two barrels to shoot first, and fore and aft to select safe or fire.
The mechanical intricacies are beautiful, the ejector system utilizes a spring to drive up the impact of the ejector upon opening the gun fully. This ensures that spent hulls are thrown clear of the breach, allowing for fast and unobstructed reloads. The ejector springs are only actuated upon firing that chamber, so unfired shells are easily retrieved from the chambers.
This gun featured two and three-quarter-inch chrome-lined chambers, and an elevated rib for better sighting picture against the bead at the end.
Sweet Sixteen
I’d never been fortunate enough to play with a sixteen-gauge gun. I’d shot countless twelve gauges, twenties, .410’s and ten gauge shotguns. But the little sixteen was new to me, and new things are usually a little bit exciting. Being a little bit bigger than the twenty gauge, I figured the sixteen would be great for wing-shooting small birds like those portrayed in the little Browning’s engravings. Doves and quail seem like an obvious choice, but ducks and pheasants would also be a perfect target for this gun.
The first issue I ran into was ammo related, turns out that in our current ammunition situation, sixteen-gauge ammo is a little more difficult to find than others. But I was lucky enough to land a couple boxes of Federal ammunition, one was a fairly standard trap load of 1 oz 8 shot. The other was a hunting load, ideal for a pheasant hunt loaded with #4 shot loaded a bit quick at 1425 fps. I was going to shoot it all to see what I did and didn’t like about this little gun. Continue Reading Here…
